Newbury, where a different mix of the syndicate turned up to cheer her on. Shagger, utterly sceptical of the mare’s ability, persuaded Toby to stay in London for some City lunch. Ione and Debbie were too busy battling over next Sunday’s church flowers. They were united, however, in their displeasure that Niall the vicar had been persuaded he needed a day off and gone to the races. Why couldn’t he bless Mrs Wilkinson before she left Willowwood?
Nor was Ione pleased that Alban had been hijacked again to drive the Ford Transit, which Chris the landlord had finally collected. Handsomely resprayed in emerald green and decorated on both sides with pale green willows and the words ‘Willowwood Syndicate’, it was now being revved up outside the Fox.
‘Isn’t it lovely,’ cried Etta. Weighed down by carrier bags, she came running up the high street. ‘Oh, thank you, Chris.’
‘Mrs Wilkinson better win today so we can pay for it,’ said Chris, winking at everyone as he loaded a groaning picnic hamper and a large box of drink.
He was staying behind to man the Fox as it was the turn of pretty, wistful Chrissie, who still hadn’t managed to get pregnant, to go to the races. Scuttling past driver Alban, who she’d last seen when they grappled on the churchyard grass during little Wayne East’s christening, she found a seat at the back.
‘Now you be’ave yourselves,’ teased Chris, further winking to mitigate the cheekiness, or Mrs T-L will have something to say when you get ‘ome, Alban.’ He banged on the bus roof as it set off to Newbury.
‘You could always hang Chris out of the window and use him as an indicator,’ observed Alan.
The instant they rounded the bend, Joey put back the gold pen he’d taken out of his woolly hat to mark the Racing Post and, announcing he was going to snog in the back, moved seats to join Chrissie and pour her a large brandy and ginger.
The bus was impeded by a huge lorry delivering an indoor swimming pool to Primrose Mansions, whereupon Alan leapt out and redirected it to Harvey-Holden’s yard.
‘Jude the Obese can use it as a bidet,’ he told the giggling passengers. ‘Poor Alban – must be hell driving a lot of piss artists,’ he muttered, filling his glass with Pouilly Fumé and handing the bottle on to Seth.
‘Hell,’ agreed Seth. He’d just finished filming in several episodes of Holby City, and was feeling exhausted but exuberantly end-of-termish. ‘But I wish he’d get his finger out or we’ll miss the last race.’
Alban was indeed sad. To save water, at his wife’s insistence he was wearing a wool check shirt for a third day. He was chilled to the marrow because Ione believed in extra jerseys rather than central heating. Finally, he’d heard that a £200,000 job to chair an independent review of an independent economic review accused of government bias had fallen through because he was considered too right wing.
If only he could have poured his heart out to Etta. How pathetic to be jealous of Pocock, who’d taken the seat beside her.
Major Cunliffe would also have liked to sit next to Etta. Freed of his wife’s beady chaperonage, he was feeling flirtatious and was delighted, as inky clouds massed on the horizon, that his grim forecast looked correct. Up the front, he was again acting as Alban’s satnav, which didn’t speed up the proceedings particularly as Alban kept slowing down to identify the inhabitants of the great houses along the route.
‘That’s Robinsgrove, Ricky France-Lynch’s place. His wife Daisy did a lovely oil of Araminta.
‘That’s Valhalla,’ he announced ten minutes later, ‘where the late Roberto Rannaldini lived. Absolute shit but brilliant musician.’
As he turned up the wireless to drown the Major’s directions, the bus was flooded with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
‘Rannaldini’s son Wolfgang married Tabitha Campbell-Black. I was at school with both of them,’ piped up Phoebe, who’d come without Toby because she’d got a crush on Seth. He looked even more gorgeous in that black pea jacket with those bags under his naughty eyes.
Phoebe was not over-pleased when Trixie, playing truant from yet another school, flagged down the bus thirty miles outside Willowwood, disappeared into the upended-coffin-shaped loo and emerged in black boots and tights, a groin-level shocking-pink coat and a black trilby decorated with a pink rose.
‘You’ll run out of schools to get expelled from soon,’ reproved Alan.
‘Fat chance,’ sighed Trixie, taking a swig from her father’s bottle. ‘With Mummy standing by to offer to build