Who would have known alstroemerias were her favourite flowers? Seth, Valent, Alan, Painswick, Pocock, Marius? She’d planted enough in his garden. She waited until her room had emptied to ring the Major, as head of the syndicate, to thank him. She got Debbie, who said Wilkie was fine, and Cheltenham would be inspecting the course at 8am, to see if racing could go ahead.
‘It’s very cold here, how’s Switzerland?’
‘OK. Thank you all for the lovely flowers and champagne and Sky so I can watch the race. I can’t believe it.’
‘We all chipped in but it was Seth’s idea,’ said Debbie tartly. ‘He was so fed up with Romy boasting to everyone that he’d muddled the two Mrs Bancrofts and meant to ask her rather than you out to lunch.’
‘Oh no,’ whispered Etta. ‘He what? How dreadful, how embarrassing.’
For once Direct Debbie was contrite. ‘Oh Etta, I thought you knew, I’m so sorry. And you’ve been forced to look after Seth’s awful dog.’
Etta put down the telephone and died. Poor, poor Seth having to give her lunch and her getting so drunk and trying to kiss him. What a laugh everyone must have had. Oh God.
Then she tried to be sensible. After his first passionate letter, she’d grown increasingly deflated as Seth’s behaviour hadn’t been remotely amorous. How she had beaten herself up, wondering if she’d repelled him coming on too strong at lunch, when he’d never meant anything in the first place. How he must only have dropped in so often to gaze at Trixie. Wryly she looked at her single bed:
Take back the hope you gave – I claim
Only a memory of the same.
Would it be sacrilege to put a teaspoon in the neck of a magnum of champagne and have a glass now?
The flying cork nearly took Martin’s eye out, as he popped in wearing a dinner jacket, bound for a New Year’s Eve jaunt.
‘Mother!’
‘I’m not taking your children out tomorrow. I’m going to watch Mrs Wilkinson.’
‘Mother!’
‘And I’m going to have several glasses of champagne now, so I’m sure you won’t consider me a responsible enough person to babysit this evening. Happy New Year, Etta,’ she added, and slammed the door in Martin’s face.
Then she looked in the mirror. The cowardly lion was roaring.
89
If the sea saved Mrs Wilkinson’s legs, Cheltenham, putting down enough frost cover for twenty-five football pitches, saved racing on New Year’s Day. The covers had now been rolled up like black brandy snaps and sent off to Sandown to save racing later in the week. There was something schizophrenic about thick snow on the surrounding fields and ring of hills, their woods silvered with hoarfrost, and the bright green course below.
Etta stuck to her last and insisted on staying in to watch the race. Poppy and Drummond opted to stay with her, partly because Mr Marcel had presented her with a huge basket of fruit. Etta didn’t tell them she’d rung Joey earlier and asked him to put £2 for each child and £30 for herself on Mrs Wilkinson, whose odds had shortened to 10–1. She tried, however, to explain to them about betting.
‘If I put on a pound, I get eleven back.’
‘Why?’ said Drummond, eating grapes.
‘If it’s 7–4 like Ilkley Hall, and I put on a four pounds, I get eleven back.’
‘Why?’
It was frustrating only to get a glimpse of the syndicate gathering in the parade ring. Nice that Ione, in a Saturn-ring fur hat, had accompanied Alban. Perhaps Cheltenham was warmer than Willowwood Hall.
She could see Corinna (who’d told the Daily Mail her New Year’s resolution was ‘to give up smoking and Seth Bainton’), Seth (how could she ever face him again?) and Alan, all in dark glasses, obviously with fearful hangovers. There was Phoebe, voluminous green cloak covering her still non-existent bump.
At least Etta wouldn’t have to relay every moment of the race to her. Five minutes to the off – pre-recorded film was now showing the twelve runners circling the parade ring.
All eyes were on Ilkley Hall, the black and beautiful favourite with his white zigzag blaze, and on Michelle, slinky in tight black leather jeans and a waisted scarlet jacket with a red fur-lined hood, as she led him up.
Ilkley Hall was followed by another of Mrs Wilkinson’s old rivals, Cosmo Rannaldini’s Internetso and by two younger horses, Last Quango, which Harvey-Holden had sold for vast profit to Lester Bolton, and a flashy chestnut gelding called Merchant of Venus, trained by Rupert Campbell-Black.