involved he gets, in the States. He’s launching a night-light called Guardian Angel, made by his Chinese factory, to stop kids being frightened of the dark. Wish he could invent something to stop grownups being frightened,’ sobbed Mop Idol.
Remembering how she’d told Valent about Poppy’s terrors, Etta nearly wept too.
‘Oh Etta, what am I going to do?’ went on Mop Idol. ‘I’ve got four children and I don’t think I can work any harder.’
‘Of course you can’t.’ It would be even worse if she knew about Joey and Chrissie. Thank God, Joey had not got Chrissie pregnant.
Etta felt so sorry for her, and it also brought home how in the past she’d relied on Valent for help. If she had just picked up the telephone she was sure he’d have helped Joey, but no longer.
Mop Idol then set out for the Fox, which only paid £5 an hour. ‘Least it’s helping in the kitchen, not in the bar, so people won’t see how dreadful I look,’ she said, vanishing into the night. ‘Thank you, Etta, for being so kind!’
Morale was also rock bottom up at Throstledown, where the staff had had to disinfect every centimetre of yard to get rid of cough germs.
Overwhelmed with restlessness, Etta took her torch and wandered up through the rustling leaves. At least the rustle meant no rain and firmer ground for tomorrow.
At a meeting in the Fox last week, there had been a strong move, led by the Major and Shagger, to sell Mrs Wilkinson and cut their losses. Dora, however, back from New York and bursting with plans, had reminded the room that Mrs Wilkinson’s website was still receiving a thousand hits a day, and the fan mail begging her and Chisolm to come back to the race track was still flooding in.
‘There’s a public hunger out there,’ pleaded Dora. ‘Racing is crying out for a really charismatic horse ridden by a really charismatic jockey.’
‘Then Rafiq must ride her,’ insisted Phoebe. ‘A member of our ethnic minorities would be …’
‘Far less marketable than a beautiful girl on a gutsy little mare,’ snapped Dora. ‘Marius is putting up Amber. They both get mare’s allowances.’
Everyone recognized that this might be Willowwood and Marius’s final race. The money lent him by Painswick had gone on feed bills.
As a last hope, because she was so well and rested, Marius had entered Mrs Wilkinson for a two-mile four-furlong chase at Cheltenham on Saturday. She would be running well below the handicap but what the hell. Excellent prize money of £55,000 had attracted some big hitters. They included Rogue, who was forging a strong relationship with Rupert, on Lusty and Killer on Ilkley Hall. Despite it being early in the season, both jockeys were even more fiercely competitive and travelling to every meeting to get rides where they could win.
Arriving as a vast yellow moon was rising, Etta found the Throstledown yard deserted except for Tommy, who had fallen asleep in the tack room. The others had gone to the pub to drown their sorrows and spend their lack of wages. The open half-doors of the empty boxes were like cavernous eye sockets. Etta gave an old piece of blackberry and apple pie to Chisolm. To Mrs Wilkinson she gave half a packet of Polos and a serious talking-to.
‘It’s your last chance, Wilkie, it’ll break your heart and all ours if you have to be sold. You’d die living with Harvey-Holden,’ Etta shuddered, ‘and he’d sack Chisolm for starters. Jude would probably eat her for tea. Everyone needs your help. Tommy, Rafiq and Painswick will lose their jobs if you don’t get your hoof out. Marius is desperate for a winner. You owe it to us, Wilkie, you’ve had such a long break.’
Mrs Wilkinson looked and felt wonderful, her silver mane lustrous, muscle like iron beneath her gleaming pewter coat. She pretended to be asleep. Her good eye was closed, but from the lower lid of the empty socket of her blind eye, infinitely pathetic, as if to say ‘I did have life once’, sprouted three long black eyelashes.
‘You’ve been so brave and come such a long way since I found you in the woods,’ whispered Etta, ‘but so many people’s lives have been wrecked by the floods. Please help us.’
Mrs Wilkinson pretended to be asleep but she was listening.
113
One source of help which had been withdrawn was Corinna and Seth’s grand Shakespeare evening in aid of the flood victims. This had fallen through because Corinna refused to participate