Jake returned with the drinks and a packet of crisps.
“I don’t know why I’ve been telling you all these things,” said Tory. “You’re the one who needs cheering up. But you’re such a good listener.”
“I get plenty of practice. When you’ve got to take stupid women on long rides you develop a listener’s face. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re listening.”
Tory’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” she said humbly, starting to eat the crisps. “I didn’t mean to bore you.”
“You haven’t,” he said irritably.
“Who taught you to ride?” she asked.
“My father. He put me on a pony almost before I could walk.”
“How long ago did he die?” said Tory.
“I don’t know that he’s dead.”
Tory looked startled.
“He was a gypsy. He met my mother when he was hop-picking on part-time work. Her father was the keeper at the big house. He tried to settle down with my mother and get a steady job, but it was like caging a lark. One day, the wanderlust became too strong, so he walked out when I was about eight years old.”
“You must have missed him.”
“I did.” The third pint of beer had loosened his tongue and the world seemed a more hospitable place.
“So did my mother. She cried a lot, behind locked doors, and my grandfather went through all the photograph albums cutting my father’s picture out of the family groups.”
“So you might suddenly bump into him one day?”
“I doubt it,” said Jake, although he never passed a gypsy encampment or a fairground without having a look.
“Was he very good-looking?”
“My mother thought so. Two years after he left she waved me off to school and said she’d be in to cook the school dinner later. Then she put some cushions in front of the gas oven and that was that. All I remember is that all the masters and boys were particularly put out because we were supposed to be having treacle pudding that day.”
He suddenly glared at Tory, whose eyes had filled with tears. What the hell was he telling the soppy cow all this for? He hadn’t talked about his mother for years.
Tory couldn’t bear it. He’d lost his mother and his father and now he was going to lose Africa.
“Do you think Bobby Cotterel will really sell her?” she asked.
“ ’Course he will; doesn’t give a damn about her. He was grumbling the other day because Mrs. Wilton was threatening to put up the livery fees.”
The pub was filling up now and becoming noisy and clamorous. Tory looked at an obscene, pink pile of sausages, greasily glinting under a cover on the bar. How lovely to see food and for once not feel hungry.
“What will you do if Africa goes?”
“Get another job.”
“Around here?”
“No, up north probably. I doubt if Mrs. Wilton will give me a reference.”
“Oh, you mustn’t,” said Tory, aghast. “I mean — it’s so cold up north. I must go to the loo.”
She had difficulty negotiating the way to the Ladies’, cannoning off tables and cricketers like a baby elephant.
Oh, hell, thought Jake, as she narrowly missed a flying dart, she’s pissed.
Tory collapsed onto the loo and realized with the shock from the cold slab under her bottom that the seat cover was still down. She lifted it up. If I can manage to go on peeing for over twenty seconds, Jake will take me out again, she said to herself. By wriggling she made it last for twenty-two.
When she found she had put her bag in the basin and washed her hands over it, she realized she was very tight. She couldn’t bear Jake to go away. She pressed her hot forehead against the mirror. “Gypsy Jake,” she murmured to herself.
Then it became plain that she must buy Africa. She had the money. Jake could pay her back, or she could be the owner and he the jockey. She had visions of herself in a big primrose yellow hat, leading Africa into the winner’s enclosure with two mounted policemen on either side. She was a bit hazy about what went on in show jumping. She looked in the telephone directory, but there was no Bobby Cotterel. He must be ex-directory; but the Mayhews had had the house before Bobby Cotterel. She spent ages finding the M’s. They did come after L, didn’t they? Oh God, the page was missing, No, it was the first number on the next page. Sir Edward Mayhew, Bandit’s Court. Her hand was shaking so much she could hardly dial the number.
“Hello,” said a brusque voice.
She was so surprised she couldn’t speak.
“If that’s burglars,” said the voice, “I’m here plus fifteen guard dogs and you can fuck off.”
Tory gasped. “No, it isn’t,” she said. “Is that Mr. Cotterel?” She must speak very slowly and try to sound businesslike.
Jake, having finished his glass of beer and ordered a large whisky, gazed at his reflection, framed by mahogany and surrounded by upside-down bottles in the mirror behind the bar. Totally without vanity, he looked in mirrors only for identity. He had spent too many Sundays at the children’s home, with scrubbed face and hair plastered down with water in the hope of charming some visitor into fostering or adopting him, to have any illusions about his attractiveness.
“Come here often?” said the barmaid, who worked in the pub on Sunday to boost her wages and in the hope of finding a new boyfriend.
“No,” said Jake.
He glanced at his watch. Tory had been away for nearly a quarter of an hour now. He hoped the stupid cow hadn’t passed out. He’d need a forklift truck to carry her home. He went out to look for her. She was standing by the telephone in the passage with her shoes off.
“That’s fine,” she was saying in a careful voice.
If Bobby Cotterel had not come back a week early from the South of France because it was so expensive, and been promptly faced with a large income-tax bill, he might not have been in such a receptive mood. Africa troubled his conscience, like his daughter’s guinea pig, whose cage, now she’d gone back to boarding school, needed cleaning out. He was not an unkind man. This girl sounded a “gent,” and was so anxious to buy Africa for four times the price he’d paid for her, and he wouldn’t have to pay any commission to Mrs. Wilton.
“The livery fee’s paid up for another three weeks,” he said.
“I’ll take that over,” said Tory.
“No, I’ll be happy to stand it to you, darling.”
“Can we come round and give you the check now?”
“Of course. Come and have a drink, but for Christ’s sake don’t tell anyone I’m back.”
Tory had had her first date, and been called darling and invited for a drink by Bobby Cotterel.
She turned towards Jake with shining eyes.
If she lost a couple of hundredweight, she’d be quite pretty, he thought sourly. What the hell had she got to look so cheerful about?
“You okay?”
“Wonderful. I’ve just bought Africa.”
“Whatever for? You don’t like horses.”
“For you, of course. You can pay me back slowly, a pound a week, or we can go into partnership. I’ll own her, you can ride her.”
A dull red flush had spread across Jake’s face.
“You’re crazy. How much did you pay?”
“I offered eight hundred and he accepted. He’s just had a bill for his income tax. I said we’d take the check around now, before Mrs. Wilton starts blabbing about Sir William and Malise Gordon.”
“Have you got that amount in the bank?”
“Oh, yes, I got ?5,000 on my birthday, and lots of shares.”
“Your mother’ll bust a gut.”
