And there would be the Serena Pembroke Scholarships, of course. And the Coochie Pembroke Memorial Challenge Trophy …
‘What are you smiling at?’ Lucy demanded. ‘You can’t say you’ve made much of a success of your life so far, can you? If Malcolm leaves us all nothing, you’ll end up carting horse-muck until you drop from senility.’
‘There are worse jobs,’ I said mildly.
There were horses around us, and racecourse noises, and a skyful of gusty fresh air. I could happily spend my life, I knew, in almost any capacity that took me to places like Sandown Park.
‘You’ve wasted every talent you have,’ Lucy said.
‘My only talent is riding horses.’
‘You’re blind and stupid. You’re the only male Pembroke with decent brains and you’re too lazy to use them.’
‘Well, thanks,’ I said.
‘It’s not a compliment.’
‘No, so I gathered.’
‘Joyce says you’re sure to know where Malcolm is as you’ve finally made up your quarrel, though you’ll lie about it as a matter of course,’ Lucy said. ‘Joyce said you would be here today on this spot at this time, if I wanted to reach you.’
‘Which you did, rather badly.’
‘Don’t be so obtuse. You’ve got to stop him. You’re the only one who can, and Joyce says you’re probably the only one who won’t try… and you must try, Ian, and succeed, if not for yourself, then for the rest of the family.’
‘For you?’ I asked.
‘Well…’ She couldn’t openly abandon her principles, but they were bending, it seemed. ‘For the others,’ she said stalwartly.
I looked at her with new affection. ‘You’re a hypocrite, my dear sister,’ I said.
In smarting retaliation, she said sharply, ‘Vivien thinks you’re trying to cut the rest of us out and ingratiate yourself again with Malcolm.’
‘I expect she would,’ I said. ‘I expect Alicia will think it also, when Vivien has fed it to her.’
‘You really are a bastard.’
‘No,’ I said, my lips twitching, ‘that’s Gervase.’
I laughed, ‘I’ll tell Malcolm you’re concerned. I promise I will, somehow. And now I’ve got to change my clothes and ride in a race. Are you staying?’
Lucy hesitated but Edwin said, ‘Will you win?’
‘I don’t think so. Save your money.’
‘You’re not taking it seriously,’ Lucy said.
I looked straight at her eyes. ‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘I take it very seriously indeed. No one had a right to murder Moira to stop her taking half Malcolm’s money. No one has a right to murder Malcolm to stop him spending it. He is fair. He will leave us all provided for, when the time comes, which I hope may be twenty years from now. You tell them all to stop fretting, to ease off, to have faith. Malcolm is teasing you all and I think it’s dangerous, but he is dismayed by everyone’s greed, and is determined to teach us a lesson. So you tell them, Lucy, tell Joyce and Vivien and everyone, that the more we try to grab, the less we will get. The more we protest, the more he will spend.’
She looked back silently. Eventually she said, ‘I am ashamed of myself.’
‘Rubbish,’ Edwin said to me vehemently. ‘You must stop Malcolm. You must.’
Lucy shook her head, ‘Ian’s right.’
‘Do you mean Ian won’t even try?’ Edwin demanded incredulously.
‘I’m positive he won’t,’ Lucy said. ‘Didn’t you hear what he said? Weren’t you listening?’
‘It was all rubbish.’
Lucy patted my arm. ‘We may as well see you race, while we’re here. Go and get changed.’
It was a more sisterly gesture and tone than I was used to, and I reflected with a shade of guilt that I’d paid scant attention to her own career for a couple of years.
‘How is the poetry going?’ I asked. ‘What are you working on?’
The question caught her unprepared. Her face went momentarily blank and then filled with what seemed to be an odd mixture of sadness and panic.
‘Nothing just now,’ she said. ‘Nothing for quite a while,’ and I nodded almost apologetically as if I had intruded, and went into the weighing-room and through to the changing-room reflecting that poets, like mathematicians, mostly did their best work when young. Lucy wasn’t writing; had maybe stopped altogether. And perhaps, I thought, the frugality she had for so long embraced had begun to seem less worthy and less worth it, if she were losing the inner sustaining comfort of creative inspiration.