‘You mean your own family wouldn’t have you?’ Cassie asked in amazement. ‘Your son and his wife weren’t prepared to take you in?’
‘My daughter-in-law was, Cassie,’ Mrs Roebuck smiled. ‘That’s the funny thing. Jeannie was all for it, but it was my son who said no. He said he had to think of his own marriage and his own life first, and I quite agreed with him.’
Happily Gina had done so well modelling, and now also as an actress, that she was rich enough as well as kind-hearted enough to have her grandmother live with her. Mrs Roebuck said she loved New York; she found it invigorating, and all the people Gina brought home were such fun that she didn’t miss Westboro Falls one bit. But Cassie couldn’t help feeling as she stole the occasional look at her that despite her beautiful cashmere sweater, her fine wool skirt, and her handmade shoes, Mrs Roebuck would still actually have been happier in her old apron sitting in front of her favourite stove back in New Hampshire, military or no military.
Gina arrived back home an hour and a half late, looking more beautiful than ever, even though, as she put it, she was dressed down.
‘That’s the look right now, Cassie,’ she said with a grin. ‘When you’ve made it, you got to look as if you’re back on social security.’
And Gina had certainly made it. Having earned a small fortune as one of New York’s top models, she’d then been offered a couple of parts in nothing movies, which she’d accepted, and made something of; so much so that Danny Browne had offered her the second lead in his new movie on the strength of her performances.
‘You have to meet him, Cassie,’ Gina told her, as they sat down to a superb lobster dinner, prepared and served by Gina’s Philippino couple. ‘He’s even shorter off-screen than on, about five one, that’s all. He’s amazingly serious, worries about his health and inhales cold water up his nose three times a day. He also wants me to marry him.’
‘And will you?’ Cassie asked, scooping out the very last bit of her lobster.
Gina glanced quickly down the table at her grandmother, then laughed, covering Cassie’s hand with hers.
‘Can you imagine me Jewish?’ she said. ‘I mean I love the guy, I love Jews, I’d even learn to cook kosher. But you know as well as I do: once a Catholic . . . I’d never make it past first base.’
‘But he wants you to change your religion?’ Cassie persisted.
‘He’s just as willing to change his,’ Gina told her. ‘But it’s his family. They get a little heavy on the subject.’
Mrs Roebuck excused herself shortly after they finished eating and got up, ready to go off to her bed.
‘I’m leaving first thing in the morning for Kentucky,’ Cassie told her. ‘So I guess I won’t see you till my next trip.’
‘You won’t see me at all if you leave it another ten years,’ Mrs Roebuck told her.
Cassie took hold of the old lady by her shoulders and kissed her warmly on both cheeks.
‘Good night, Mrs Roebuck,’ she said.
‘Goodbye, Cassie darling,’ Mrs Roebuck replied.
Cassie watched her go slowly off to her bedroom, helped by Gina’s maid. She knew, like Mrs Roebuck did, that it was most probably the very last time they would see each other, and as Mrs Roebuck’s bedroom door closed, so another door shut behind Cassie.
Then Gina poured her some more wine and Cassie came and sat beside her on the huge leather sofa, where they talked long past midnight, about everything that had happened to them, their old friends, their new friends and both their present lives.
‘Your grandmother told me Maria’s married with three kids,’ Cassie said. ‘Isn’t that great?’
‘She’s married an accountant, Cassie,’ Gina replied, ‘and she’s bored suicidal. Do you know what he does when he gets home in the evening? He dusts. And then goes round checking that all the ornaments are straight, that they’re all just as he left them the evening before. If I were Maria I’d push him over a cliff. Trouble is, there’s no real point in killing him, because the guy’s dead already.’
There was a short and awkward silence, while Gina glanced at Cassie and then hurriedly poured her some wine.
‘OK,’ Gina said. ‘I had to say something wrong sooner or later.’
‘You haven’t said anything wrong,’ Cassie reassured her.
‘I haven’t?’
‘Not a thing. We can’t sit here all evening talking like the old friends we are without once mentioning Tyrone.’
Gina smiled in relief and sat back, pulling her legs up under her. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘So do you want to talk about it?’
‘Not really,’ Cassie replied. ‘It’s one of those things, you know, Gina. When you’ve lost somebody and you want to talk about it, nobody asks you. When you’re beginning to come good again, as we say in racing, and you don’t want to talk about it, everyone asks you.’
‘I’ll bet,’ said Gina.
Even so, Cassie found that she did want to talk about it. Simply because ever since talking to Frank, she now found it easier to talk. So she told Gina what she wanted to know about her life with Tyrone, and about her life after Tyrone. Since her visit to the Christiansens, it was as if the major part of the burden had finally been eased off her shoulders.
‘It’s a terrible and confusing thing, grief, you know, Gina,’ Cassie tried to explain. ‘In a way you can’t bear to think about the person you’ve lost, because the pain’s just too much. And yet in another way, you don’t want to stop thinking about them, because whenever you do, you feel you’re being unfaithful to their memory.’
‘You’ve just got to start thinking about yourself, I guess, Cass,’ Gina reasoned. ‘From the way you talk about him, there’s no chance you’re ever going to forget him. But you can’t spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.’
‘That’s right, Gina,’ Cassie replied. ‘I think that finally got home to me yesterday in Locksfield, Pennsylvania.’
The trip to Kentucky proved not only pleasurable, but productive. Cassie established some useful new contacts and found a nice yearling for Joe Coughlan; and was persuaded by Sheila Meath into buying a winning mare by a son of the great Mahmoud, who was in foal to a stallion called Sir Jack. The mare was only for sale because of the bankruptcy of her owner, a heavy gambler who had finally lost his all at the Las Vegas gaming tables.
‘What do I need another one for?’ Cassie complained, as they made arrangements for the mare to be flown back to Dublin. ‘I’ve still got my lovely old Gracie.’
‘You’ll need to establish more bloodlines, that’s why,’ Sheila replied. ‘Unless you want to interbreed and end up with a lot of dotty horses. Anyway, this is a damn good-looking sort of mare, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she didn’t throw a rather nice foal.’
At the end of a pretty exhausting and hectic week spent dashing around the beautiful country that makes up Kentucky, Cassie and Sheila had half a day to spend in New York before flying back home. Sheila went off to have lunch with her old friend the British Ambassador, while Cassie was taken out to dine by Frank Christiansen.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news first?’ he asked her over cocktails. ‘The bad news is we can’t agree on the amount you’ve asked for.’
Cassie did her best not to look as crestfallen as she felt, while Frank studied her earnestly over his Martini.
‘Any particular reason, Frank?’ she asked.
‘Heap good reason,’ Frank replied. ‘We think the figure’s too small. No, don’t laugh—’ he said quickly, as Cassie looked up at him in surprise. ‘I’m actually being serious. The money you’re after is the sort of money our firm spends on towels for the director’s washroom. The model-T guys think you’re small potatoes if you come cap in hand for anything under let’s say a hundred grand. Which is what I said your base-line figure was.’
‘I don’t need a hundred thousand, Frank,’ Cassie frowned. ‘I just need enough to get things going.’
‘You’ve got a hundred th
ousand,’ Frank replied, ‘and you’re going to need every cent of it. You don’t sell automobiles by just putting a set of tyres in the showroom. People want to see the whole damn car. And they want to try it out. It’ll be the same with your concentrates. Buyers won’t come looking for them. They’ll want to see them everywhere. They’ll want free samples. They’ll want to pick up their horse magazines and see full-page advertisements. And they’ll want to see them succeed first, before they feed one ounce of it to even the kid’s pony. So you’re going to go find someone who needs some money – no I don’t mean bribe money, I’m talking sponsorship money – and Claremore Concentrates is going to back ’em. And if this stuff’s as good as all your reports say that it is, sooner or later you’ll pick a winner and there you go.’
‘It’s as easy as that,’ Cassie said.
‘It’s as hard as that,’ Frank replied, ‘and that’s why we’re starting you off with a hundred grand. I also know you’re right. I think equestrianism – is that right – I think equestrianism is going to be a mighty big growth area. In ten years’ time, we won’t even recognise the market.’
Cassie finished her drink and looked at Frank. ‘What are the provisos?’ she asked, with a grin, remembering the offer of a weekend in Kinsale. ‘I’m not sure I like provisos.’
‘There is a proviso,’ Frank nodded, ‘but I don’t think you’ll find it objectionable, Cassie. The proviso to this deal is that you make us both a million, and with the proceeds I get to own a Derby winner.’
‘The first part of the proviso, Mr Christiansen,’ Cassie replied, taking the offer of his arm in to lunch, ‘is one hell of a lot easier than the second.’
The first part wasn’t easy either. As predicted, few of the racehorse trainers wanted to know about any more fancy foodstuffs which might be coming on the market, even though in pure dietary terms the Claremore Concentrate was probably vastly superior to the old-fashioned and haphazard way most of them fed their animals.
‘Look here,’ one particular purple-faced and weather-beaten old trainer in Lambourn, Berkshire, had told their sales rep, ‘I’ve been feeding horses since before you were born. There’s not a thing you can tell me, and there’s not a thing I don’t know about it.’
‘Very well, sir,’ the young man apparently had replied. ‘What is the fibre-value and protein content of oats as compared with our racehorse cubes, and which vitamins are essential for the proper welfare of the horse’s muscle structure?’
The trainer had failed to answer either part of the question not only correctly but at all. The young man had also failed to get an order.
During the whole of the first racing season that Claremore Concentrates was on the market, the sales analysis showed that only eight per cent of all professional trainers had tried the new concentrate, and that only five per cent decided to use it regularly. However, of the five per cent who remained loyal, three per cent all recorded their best ever number of winners in one season, and none of the five per cent experienced any equine digestive problems at all throughout the year. While it was hardly an auspicious market launch, the few portents that showed were all positively good ones.
On the other hand, the private market showed a much healthier reaction to Claremore’s product than the professional sector. Owners of small yards standing hunters or just riding horses at livery found their concentrates more economical, easier and more satisfactory, as did private owners with family horses. The Claremore Standard Horse Mixture, which contained in one bag a carefully balanced mixture of all the basic foods, minerals and vitamins a riding horse in ordinary work needed, was an instant success, and indeed kept the company afloat while the sales force tried desperately to get more than a foot in the commercial door.
‘Sure they’ll never take to this stuff over here, let alone in England,’ Tomas had prophesied. ‘They’ll suspect it for bein’ too American. It’s like the food I hear yous eat over there. Sausages in bread rolls covered in ketchup, and them hamburger things. That sort of food’ll never catch on this side of the Atlantic.’
‘What we need,’ Sheila had advised, ‘is what your American friend said, a rider: someone who’ll feed their horse on nothing but your foodstuffs, and then go and win some dam’ great event on the TV.’
‘I’ll do it!’ Josephine had volunteered. ‘I’ll ride Blackstuff, and win a class at Ballsbridge!’
‘I’m sure you would,’ her mother had agreed. ‘But maybe first of all, Josie, we should start off aiming just a little bit lower.’
‘OK,’ Josephine had agreed, jumping down from the table. ‘But when you’re ready for us, you just say the word.’
Cassie had sat in silence for a little longer over their last glass of wine, before suddenly banging her fist on the table.
‘Dammit, Sheila!’ she said. ‘We’re doing it the wrong way round! What we should do is first of all announce what we’re going to do, and then set about doing it!’
‘The longer you live in this crazy country of ours,’ Sheila had replied, ‘the more Irish you become.’
Cassie had explained her plan, and as she did, Sheila Meath’s eyes grew wider and wider. They would simply announce in their advertisements that Claremore Concentrates produces winners and that in the forthcoming season, to prove the value of their revolutionary foodstuffs, they would feed and sponsor an event horse to win an important event.
‘You don’t want much,’ Sheila had muttered darkly. ‘What’s it to be? Badminton? Or somewhere really important?’
‘Look,’ Cassie had reasoned, quite unreasonably, ‘it doesn’t matter if the horse comes nowhere. We’ll have tried our best, the horse will have tried its best, and we’ll have had what’s known as value publicity. The public will soon forget our boast. In fact I’ll bet you my very bottom dollar, whatever wins the event we’re aiming for, a month after it’s over nobody’ll be able to tell you the name of the horse. But they won’t forget the name of Claremore Concentrates.’
Sheila had looked at her long and hard.
‘Mr Rosse left more than a little bit of himself behind in you, young lady,’ she’d said. ‘Now I suppose all you want me to do is go and find you the horse.’
‘Yes please,’ Cassie had answered. ‘We’ll advertise for the rider.’
It was on the face of it a madcap scheme. But like a lot of long-priced gambles, it paid off, although not in quite the way Cassie had envisaged it. Sheila Meath had a cousin with a very good intermediate event horse, now without its rider due to a fall out hunting. Cassie advertised for a proven rider who needed guaranteed sponsorship, and from over two hundred hopeful replies, they selected a short-list of twelve to be interviewed, finally choosing a young English girl called Mary Taylor-Walker, who was the cognoscenti’s tip for the top. Everything went according to plan; the initial advertising campaign attracted due attention, and then the horse came third in his first intermediate two-day event. In the next three events, he was never worse than eighth, and never better than fourth, but expectations of achieving the win which had been announced in advance were high, particularly as both horse and rider were improving all the time.
The plan was to win at Norlands Park, Worcestershire, in October, the last month of the eventing season, and it very nearly paid off. Going to the third stage of the two-day event, the cross-country, the horse was lying in joint first place with two others, and was favourite to emerge the final winner, due to his proven superiority over his closest rivals. But three quarters of the way round the course, running uphill to a one-stride double, a dog ran out across the horse’s path, and either the horse or the rider lost concentration, resulting in a fall which happily was considerably less serious than it looked. It did, however, put paid to the horse’s chances not only of winning the event, but of winning within the season, as predicted.
Cassie and Sheila had come over from Ireland to watch, and there was a certain amount of rueful banter in the bar when they realised their hopes were gone.
‘Come
on,’ Sheila finally said. ‘After coming all this way, we might as well go and see what wins the bloody thing.’
Amanda Holford’s up-and-coming horse Without Equal duly won, being the only one of the leading four horses to finish within the given cross country time. Cassie was surprised to see the rider grin at her after the presentation, as she had never met the girl.
She did shortly afterwards, as she and Sheila were walking back to the car park. They heard someone running up behind them, and when they turned, hearing someone call out, saw Amanda waving at them to stop.
‘Sorry,’ she said, as she caught them up breathlessly, ‘but I had to speak to you before you disappeared back to Ireland.’
‘Really?’ said Cassie. ‘What about? Oh – and well done, by the way.’
‘Thanks,’ Amanda said, with a supremely cheerful grin. ‘And hard luck you. Still, as they always say, someone’s bad luck is your good luck. And actually in this case, someone’s good luck is also your good luck.’
She grinned happily at them both once more, waiting quite deliberately to be asked to explain.
‘OK,’ Cassie said, catching the pretty girl’s infectious grin. ‘How come?’
‘Well,’ Amanda explained, ‘you see I shall probably be looking for a new sponsor next season, and I wondered whether you might be interested.’
‘Oh,’ said Cassie, somehow without reason hoping for better things, ‘well now that all depends, Miss Holford.’
‘Mandy,’ said the girl, taking off her riding hat, and undoing a mane of blonde hair. ‘Sorry – what does it depend on?’
‘A lot of what my partner describes as model-T guys sitting in their boardroom the other side of the Atlantic.’
‘Really?’ Amanda asked with another cheeky grin. ‘Well I shouldn’t worry too much, because I should think they’ll be rather pleased with you when they hear.’
‘When they hear what exactly, Mandy?’ Cassie enquired.
‘Oh,’ Amanda replied. ‘Only that I’ve been feeding Without Equal on Claremore Concentrates all season.’
To Hear a Nightingale Page 61