thousand on the gate,’ said the Major proudly. ‘I should think they’ll close on a hundred thousand.’
‘Word must have got round that Bonny Richards was putting in an appearance,’ Bonny told Seth and Alan. ‘Extraordinary to think that about a hundred times that number watched The Blossoming on Sky last week.’
Helicopters, including Shade’s, Rupert’s and Valent’s, could be seen gathered on the far side of the course like a flock of pterodactyls. Bonny needed another rich man.
To the left, the syndicate could see into the box which Shade had paid over the odds for and which he’d covered in photographs of himself and the famous to wow his customers. These were coming out on to the balcony, creatures of the night, thugs in black coats and hats with waxy faces, their women in black too, pashminas thrown over bare bulky shoulders.
‘Black to match the body bags,’ said Alan. ‘Horrible-looking bunch.’
‘“Now thrive the armourers,”’ murmured Seth.
Glamour was provided in Shade’s box by Olivia in a soft grey cashmere suit. ‘How can she put up with that hood?’ shuddered Alan.
Now joining them were Romy and Martin and Jude the Obese, who took up most of the balcony.
‘They could fly her instead of the William Hill balloon,’ said Seth.
‘Whale-iam Hill,’ quipped Alan.
‘I thought Martin was jogging with her every night so she could be a role model for WOO.’
‘That’s rather fallen by the weighing scales,’ said Alan, as Bonny smirked and gave Martin a discreet wave.
Glancing further to the right, Bonny’s lips tightened as she noticed Valent, Rupert, Ryan Edwards and his family plus footballing friends having a ball. And omigod, they’d been joined by Cindy Bolton, shrieking, jangling and half naked.
Now Cindy was smiling up at Valent.
‘It distresses me to see Valent today,’ Bonny told Seth and Alan earnestly. ‘If only he’d received some counselling over Pauline, I’m sure he could have achieved closure.’
‘I’d rather achieve winners enclosure,’ said Seth, handing his hipflask to Alan, who was making notes as the colours of the Gold Cup runners were superimposed on the course.
To kick off, great Gold Cup winners of the past, including Rupert Campbell-Black’s Penscombe Pride and the late Roberto Rannaldini’s Prince of Darkness, sauntered down the course, relaxed as ex-prime ministers, no doubt agreeing that in their day the fences had been much higher and darker.
Huntsmen in red coats then led out the great horses of the present, gloriously gleaming Gold Cup runners, with two lads to each horse. A cheer went up from Shade’s box as Ilkley Hall passed. He was led by Vakil, sinister as an undertaker in his dark suit and tie, and by Michelle, who with her pale face and rippling red forest-fire hair was H-H’s only stable lass whom Shade’s magenta and orange colours suited. Her sexy sidelong smiles distracted the punters from a lacklustre Ilkley Hall, who’d been relentlessly overrun in pursuit of the Order of Merit.
Bonny’s lips tightened again as the occupants of Rupert and Valent’s box fell over the balcony, joining in the massive cheer for their pin-up boy Rogue as he passed by on the vast liver chestnut Lusty. Lusty’s plaits seemed tiny on his huge arched neck as Rogue unravelled the two nearest to hold on to.
The women in the crowd cheered louder as they admired Rogue’s jutting lower lip, his blond streaked curls and his hefty shoulders broadened by the horizontal blue and green stripes of Rupert’s colours. Cool outwardly as the minus-140-degree chamber he’d been plunged into to cure his dislocated shoulder, which was now hurting like hell after two wins, Rogue had convinced the doctors he was fit to ride and smiled up at his admirers to prove it.
‘Going to take a lot of beating,’ brayed Alban. ‘Oh, here comes Wilkie, hurrah, hurrah.’
But his words were drowned by a vast collective bellow, as led by a beaming Dora and Tommy, ears pricked, head up, striding out with pointed toe, totally unfazed by the masses, lapping up the adulation, came Mrs Wilkinson.
‘If she could wave her hoof like the Queen, she would,’ giggled Dora, as ecstatic admirers brandished ‘I love Wilkie’ posters, opened their jackets to show Wilkie T-shirts and yelled, ‘Hello, Tommy. Hello, Dora.’ Chisolm, having hastily hoovered up the polyanthus round Best Mate’s statue, gobbled up any posies offered by fans.
The crowd, as Mrs Wilkinson passed, also clocked her green browband. Noting the black patch over her blind eye, they were moved by how small she was and how slight her ashen young jockey, and cheered even