At Long Odds

by Hannah Hooton

  ‘Damien’s like a brother to me and brothers help each other out. When I asked if you would train Kenya for me, I knew you already had a stable jockey, a pretty good one from what I hear. But,’ he paused and looked at her with pleading eyes, ‘I can’t let anybody else ride my horses apart from Damien, no matter how good they are. Would you be all right with that?’

  Ginny let her breath out in a rush of relief and gave a strangled laugh.

  ‘God, I thought you were going to tell me something horrific. That’s fine, honestly.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely. I mean, ideally I’d like my stable jockey to ride all of my horses but it’s not unheard of for an owner to request a specific jockey.’

  The anxious furrows creasing Mark’s brow vanished as he beamed at her. He reached across the table and took her hand in his.

  Ginny’s heart rate took off again.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I don’t want there to be any issues between us.’

  Ginny was more aware of his fingers curling around hers than making intelligent conversation. How exactly did he define ‘issue’ because right now there was an ‘issue’ growing warmer and warmer in her stomach.

  ‘Issues?’ she said, tearing her eyes away from their entwined fingers.

  Mark looked down at his thumb making lazy circles on her palm and his smile broadened.

  ‘Of the destructive kind. I like you, Ginny, and your attitude. I think you and I are going to get on very well.’

  The evening seemed to pass in a haze of good food and delicious company for Ginny. The champagne had loosened her tongue and she knew she was probably talking too much, but Mark was such a good listener, flatteringly so. He smiled, tended to agree more with her opinions than disagree, and asked intelligent questions. Their main course of fresh fish was heavenly, and Ginny didn’t need much persuasion to agree on an assortment of cheeses on rice crackers and whole-wheat biscuits to finish off with. She was sorry when the time came to eventually leave.

  The next awkward moment, she knew as they glided out of the car park in Mark’s Jag, would be the saying goodbye. Would they shake hands or were they now friendly enough for a peck on the cheek? She wasn’t sure that she wanted to kiss him – well, not just yet, anyhow. The fact that she was more of his racing trainer than his friend still weighed at the forefront of her mind despite the fact that this evening had felt more like a date. She was relieved when he took control of the situation.

  Once they’d pulled up outside Sally G’s house, he stepped out and went round to open her door for her. Then, after accompanying her to the front door, he gently took her hand and pressed his lips against it, looking up at her with sleepy grey eyes. His warm breath tickled the hairs on her wrist and she felt her knees go weak.

  ‘Thank you for a lovely evening, Ginny. I couldn’t have asked for better company,’ he murmured.

  ‘Thank you. I’ve had a lovely time too,’ she said, surprising herself that she was able to string a coherent sentence together while in such close proximity to him.

  ‘I’ll be in touch. Sleep well.’ And with that he turned and walked away, long confident strides which ridiculed the length of Sally G’s front path.

  Ginny sighed and let herself in the house. She stood with her back against the front door and stared into the darkened hall. What was she doing getting involved with someone in racing – a client at that – when she had sworn to herself that she’d never do it again? Maybe this time it would be different. He was an owner, not a jockey, after all. He would surely have more of an interest in her career moves.

  Chapter 7

  ‘Ah, Ginny, you’re here at last,’ Ray greeted her as she entered Kings Art Gallery a week later.

  ‘Hi, sorry I’m late.’ She gave her brother a quick appraisal. ‘You’re looking very dapper.’

  Ray grimaced and pulled at the lapels of his dinner jacket.

  ‘Hired. Anyway, come through and get your complimentary glass of champagne before they kick off.’

  Ginny followed him through a well-lit room, glancing at the white partitions bedecked with pieces of art. Ray led them to a long table lining one wall and retrieved a glass of sparkling wine for her.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, clinking her glass against his. ‘Where’s Sarah?’

  ‘Working the room I should think. Hope she sells a few pieces tonight. How did your date go the other night?’

  Ginny’s stomach flipped at the thought of her evening with Mark.

  ‘I don’t know that it was a date as such,’ she said cautiously. ‘But it went well, thanks.’

  ‘What’s his name again?’

  ‘Mark Rushin –’

  They were interrupted by the tinkering of a knife against a wine glass. Ginny noticed a woman, shimmering in a blue sequined dress, stood in a prominent spot in the middle of the floor trying to garner everyone’s attention.

  ‘I think it’s time to get started now,’ she said. ‘Firstly, welcome to Kings Art Gallery. It’s a pleasure to see so many people could make it tonight. And it’s my pleasure and privilege to open this exhibition of beautifully diverse artwork by our line-up of extraordinary artists to you.’ She clapped encouragingly and the room of people joined in. ‘So please take your time and enjoy the scenery. Thank you.’

  Ginny watched the woman turn away to address some guests. She choked on her champagne when she recognised one of them.

  ‘Bloody hell. What’s he doing here?’ she spluttered.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Julien Larocque.’ She watched the Frenchman take the woman’s hand and gesture complimentarily at her dress. The woman batted her hand at him and smoothed out invisible creases on his jacketed shoulder. In contrast to every other man wearing a tie, he wore an open-necked silk shirt.

  ‘Dunno, although it doesn’t surprise me,’ Ray said, taking a slug of his drink.

  Ginny looked at him questioningly.

  ‘He’s literally rubbing shoulders with the right people. You ought to do that,’ he said, motioning to Julien obviously charming his admirer.

  ‘Don’t think I’d get quite the same response. Who is she?’

  ‘Deidre Forrester. She owns this place.’

  ‘Forrester?’ Ginny asked in surprise. ‘Don’t tell me – she has something to do with Basil Forrester, right?’

  Ray nodded.

  ‘His wife.’

  ‘Jesus, at the rate Julien’s going we might get Shanghai Dancer back.’

  ‘Nah. From what I’ve heard, Larocque never oversteps the boundary. He plays the wives but never gets his hands dirty.’

  Ginny snorted.

  ‘Gigolo,’ she muttered. But despite her best attempts to smear him, she too couldn’t quite resist giving him a once over. Unlike Ray, who looked awkward and slightly uncomfortable in his hired suit, Julien’s wardrobe seemed to mould lovingly against his body, accentuating his every masculine feature. Ginny’s eyes travelled up from his torso to the breadth of his shoulders and smooth jaw and –

  ‘Oh, shit,’ she said, dropping her gaze.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. He’s just seen me, that’s all. Show me Sarah’s art.’

  Ray grinned.

  ‘Caught you perving, did he?’

  ‘Ray, I have a host of embarrassing stories to share with Sarah if you’re not careful,’ she warned him with a dry smile.

  ‘Fair enough. Come on.’

  Following his lead across the room, she flashed another glance at Julien. He gave her a lazy grin and lifted his glass in greeting. Ginny’s cheeks flushed and she hurried to keep up with Ray.

  On her second glass of wine and left to her own devices, Ginny frowned at the square canvas mounted on the wall. She had never really seen the point of abstract paintings and she was sure a pre-school student could have done a better job than this particular work’s creator. She tried to concentrate on the picture as her mind slipped back to the subject of Julien Larocque. Was that how he had go
t Forrester’s horses, she asked herself? By charming his wife? But then at The Tetrarch, he had had a different companion and he’d already secured the three horses. Had that girl been some rich owner’s daughter? She gave a silent mirthless laugh. How low would he stoop to get customers?

  ‘Scoundrel,’ she said under her breath.

  Then again, a voice in Ginny’s head piped up, aren’t you doing the same thing with Mark? She chewed her lip studiously. With Mark it’s different, she told herself. She had real feelings for Mark. A small rush of panic flooded through her. If she wasn’t trying to charm Mark and she really did have real feelings for him, wasn’t she breaking her golden rule?

  ‘Owners are different,’ she muttered to herself.

  ‘You seem to have a lot to say to this painting,’ a voice murmured in her ear. She sprang round to face her nemesis. ‘What is it saying to you in reply?’

  Ginny gulped and ignored the teasing smile on his lips.

  ‘Not a lot.’ She looked back at the painting, with its irregular adjoining shapes and solid colours. ‘It looks a bit confused really. All of these random squares and circles. A six-year-old could have done it.’

  ‘I think non.’ Julien motioned to the picture as if he was caressing a woman’s body. ‘It is maybe not a Picasso, the master, but do you not see the balance? The symmetry between that green square there and that red triangle and blue circle?’

  Reluctant to do anything of Julien’s asking, she still found herself looking for what he meant.

  ‘No. How can they be symmetric if they’re different shapes?’

  Julien put his arm round her shoulder, making her flinch, and drew her closer so they were looking at the painting from the same angle.

  ‘Do you always judge things on their surface?’ he asked. ‘Look beyond that. Try to understand why the artist has put that circle that far from the top right corner. See how the same colour has been used in the lower left corner for those two lines? If he had only put one line in or painted the circle more to the left, the painting would become unbalanced, non?’

  Never mind the painting, Ginny was feeling unbalanced in such close quarters to Julien. She shook her head and stepped away.

  ‘No, can’t see it,’ she declared. ‘Give me a Munnings any day.’

  Julien flashed her a row of white teeth.

  ‘You have a one track mind. It is horses all the way with you.’

  Ginny frowned. That made her sound narrow-minded.

  ‘No. I just like his way of painting,’ she defended herself. ‘His subjects, whether they be horses, people or landscapes, all show a likeness to reality. They’re not exaggerated; they’re just true to life. In proportion.’

  ‘You like the Vitruvian Man then?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. A man of perfect proportions.’

  ‘Oh, that one. Yes, I like it. Although when you think about it, that isn’t particularly true to life either.’

  Julien laughed.

  ‘You mean you have not found the perfect man?’

  Ginny felt a smile twitch her mouth.

  ‘No, still searching on that front.’

  ‘I wish you luck then,’ he chuckled. ‘Good evening, mademoiselle.’

  She watched him walk away. A pity about the personality but his body was pretty well-proportioned from this angle. Deidre Forrester nabbed him as he approached another painting and shepherded him over to the drinks table. There she unearthed a bottle of Jameson’s Whiskey from behind the rows of wine bottles huddled against the wall and poured him a generous measure. Ginny shook her head at the woman’s enamoured attitude. Still, she thought to herself, draining the last of her wine, the poor woman must award herself some respite from being married to Basil Forrester.

  Chapter 8

  A fortnight later, Ginny concluded being a horseracing trainer wasn’t as frightening as she had originally imagined. Her first runner of the season, Pacifist, had run a decent fourth in his race, giving her a new lease of confidence. Since then, she had sent out three other runners. Two of them had finished out of the frame but Golden Marble, a flashy chestnut horse, had performed well in his chosen event and had finished runner-up. She had been pleased with the result and was sure that with softer ground he would better it.

  On a damp Sunday morning, Ginny stood beneath the office’s overhang scowling up at the sky. Voluminous black clouds tumbled over the skyline and fat cold bullets of rain sprayed down. She wanted it soft but not this soft. She tapped that day’s edition of the Racing Post against her jodhpur-clad leg as she contemplated making a run for it. Beyond her, the stables were deserted. All the horses were taking refuge in their warm dry looseboxes and no inquisitive heads looked across to her standing at the office doorway. Amidst the battering of rain, she could hear the gurgling of the drains choking beneath the onslaught of water.

  As an alternative to making a dash for her parents’ house, she lifted her newspaper to read the headlines again. She felt a sneer soil her face as once more she looked at the picture of Shaman, one of Basil Forrester’s horses, winning a stakes race by a crushing eight lengths. The reporter was heavily hinting that Julien Larocque should take the horse to Royal Ascot next.

  If the Forrester horses were still at Ravenhill Stables, would she have been that bold, she wondered? Royal Ascot was the crème de la crème of horse racing, and Ginny considered whether or not she would have had the guts to enter anything there.

  ‘Of course you would,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Forrester just didn’t give you the chance.’

  Giving the newspaper one final shake, she held it above her head and brazened the downpour. With a soggy Racing Post flapping in front of her eyes, she hurried across the car park but stopped short as a loud bang shattered the steady drum of rainfall. Looking up in surprise, she saw one of the wine glass-shaped terracotta flowerpots, which stood outside Ravenhill’s gates, lying in pieces across the drive. Its earthen innards spilled over the road, turning into mud as the rain battered down, and the colourful flowers lay scattered in careless disregard. Her original dismay turned to burning rage as she saw the culprit.

  Trying, but not succeeding, to make a quick getaway was the Cobalt Lodge horse lorry. In trying to reverse on to the road in the squalid conditions, they had slammed straight into Ravenhill Stables’ entrance.

  Acknowledging that this was probably an innocent accident given the torrid weather, she still felt furious that Larocque’s yard had tried to make a run for it. Anger overcame her as she watched the lorry bump onto the main road and make a noisy escape. Forgetting the rain, she marched out of the gates and in through her neighbour’s.

  Julien Larocque’s Lotus Esprit crouched in the evenly-tarred car park like a black cat hunched against the elements. Seeing this and realising its owner obviously hadn’t left for the afternoon’s racing yet, Ginny swelled with a renewed sense of resentment. Storming into his office, she found Julien standing behind a desk with his back to her as he wrote things down on a whiteboard. As she knocked hard on the door to attract his attention, she suddenly became aware of what a sight she must look, standing in the warm, spacious office dripping water onto the polished oak floorboards and confronting Julien, who was as dry as a teetotaller. He looked round in surprise, a hint of a bemused smile lifting the corners of his mouth as he took in Ginny’s sodden state.

  ‘Mr Larocque, I –’

  ‘Julien, please,’ he interrupted.

  She paused to take a deep breath and swallow her temper then started again.

  ‘Julien,’ she spat, ‘I’ve come to complain about your rude incompetent staff.’

  He raised a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘They’ve just crashed into some of Ravenhill’s property, before driving off without even stopping!’

  Julien frowned.

  ‘What did they crash into?’

  All of a sudden, Ginny felt a little silly.

  ‘A flowerpot.’

 
; He snorted, and walked round his desk to lean against it, facing Ginny.

  ‘A flowerpot?’

  ‘Yes, but a big special one that sits outside the gate,’ she said, feeling even sillier at trying to justify her fury. ‘It was one of a pair!’

  ‘Do you need some superglue, perhaps? I have some in here…’ he said, turning and opening a desk drawer and rummaging around.

  ‘Mr Larocque!’ Ginny exclaimed, the last shred of her patience snapping. ‘Your staff have damaged my property, before buggering off, not even stopping to apologise, and leaving a damned mess all over my driveway!’

  ‘Honestly, I cannot blame them for driving away if this is how you would have treated them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be half as angry if they’d just stopped. I’m not totally unreasonable!’

  Julien didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Maybe you are this angry because of me?’

  ‘Because of you?’

  ‘Especially because of me. You seem to have something against me, I think.’ His gaze briefly dropped to the sodden newspaper scrunched in Ginny’s hand where Shaman’s photograph was visible.

  ‘I’ve something against people who believe they are above the law and better than anyone else!’

  ‘Miss Kennedy, I do not think myself better than anyone else,’ he drawled. ‘Nor do I believe I am above the law. I apologise for my staff, I did not tell them to run over your flowerbed –’

  ‘Pot. Flowerpot.’

  ‘Pot. Maybe you can collect on insurance? You have included flowerpots in your clause, non?’

  Ginny glared at him, her fists clenched at her sides. By contrast, Julien lounged against his desk, one long leg crossed over the other at the ankle and his hands hooked into his trouser pockets, wearing a half-serious, half-entertained expression on his face.

  ‘Fine,’ she said through gritted teeth, trying to regain some composure. ‘Forget about it. I don’t know what I expected from telling you this, but you’ve just proven my suspicions of you are correct.’