Ferdie managed to inveigle a large brandy out of a dining-car waiter on the next-door train.
‘This’ll warm you up,’ he told Natasha, emptying the bottle into a paper cup, ‘and here’s
‘Thank you,’ said Natasha listlessly.
‘I’ll come and take you out from school.’
‘If you like.’
‘And I’ll write.’
Natasha felt so low and was so determined not to break down that she didn’t even look up and wave to Ferdie as the train pulled out. Slumped in her seat to avoid the low-angled sun she noticed the train had the same hoot as the first notes of the last movement of Beethoven’s
Natasha tried to read
‘I don’t know where mine is,’ sobbed Natasha.
‘In your coat pocket on top of the rack,’ said the voice.
‘Oh, Ferdie,’ howled Natasha, ‘go away.’
Charmingly relentless, Ferdie ordered everyone out of the carriage, getting down the fat woman’s suitcase, explaining that there had been a death in the family. Then, sitting beside Natasha, he emptied another bottle of brandy into her paper cup.
‘I’m such a bitch, how can you possibly still love me?’
‘The torch I carry for you has a rechargeable battery. I’m thinking of signing up for the Gulf.’
Natasha looked up suddenly. ‘Oh, please don’t.’
‘Would you mind?’ Ferdie started to wipe away her tears with a British Rail napkin.
‘I would,’ said Natasha in amazement. ‘Actually I seriously would.’
Ferdie got out his wallet and handed her two hundred pounds in cash.
‘What’s that for?’
‘It says: PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE: ?200, and I want to use you improperly! Oh Natasha, my darling,’ said Ferdie, taking her in his arms.
By the time Lysander returned to Magpie Cottage the rosy dreams of winning Kitty, induced largely by Bob’s Dom Perignon, had faded and he collapsed into a deep despairing sleep. Woken by his alarm clock set for two in the afternoon so he could back Hannah’s Uncle in the 2.30, he was outraged to find his Ladbroke’s account had been suspended. Transferred to the accounts department, he learned that his December cheque had bounced. Only utter disbelief induced him to open one of the numerous letters from his bank, whereupon he nearly died of shock. He was on to Ferdie in a trice.
‘Does OD at the bottom of the page always mean one’s overdrawn.’
‘Or over-dosing. It certainly does.’
‘By twenty thousand pounds?’
‘Jesus! Did you buy Paradise Grange or something? You had a hundred grand in there in November. Look at your cheques.’
Laboriously Lysander started to decipher them.
‘Well, there’s fifty thousand to Georgie.’
‘Georgie? She was supposed to be paying
‘I hate her so much I paid her back. I didn’t want to be be — whatever it is — to her. Anyway I didn’t get her husband back.’
‘Sale and no return,’ sighed Ferdie. ‘Carry on.’
‘And thirty grand back to Marigold. No, she’s honestly on her uppers, and I had to pay my return fare from Brazil, and give Gina a diamond bracelet because I’d walked out on her.’
‘Oh, Lysander,’ said Ferdie wearily.
‘And ten thousand for the Hotel de Versailles. Christ, that’s steep.’
‘You were only there three days.’
‘I know, but Rannaldini wanted Kitty to move into a pokey little room so I picked up the tab for her suite. The Jacuzzi was sensational. Hang on, I’ll ring you back. There’s someone at the door.’
In fact quite a crowd had gathered, stamping their feet on the snowy doorstep, including the owner of The Heavenly Host who hadn’t been paid for four months, a man in a dufflecoat with a drop on the end of his red nose and Marigold, swollen with indignation and a blue Puffa, who was accompanied by a disdainful camel-faced couple in Barbours.
‘Oh, Marigold,’ Lysander pulled her like a lifebelt into the cottage. ‘Is Kitty OK? Please put in a good word for me.’
‘You keep away from Kitty,’ whispered Marigold furiously. ‘You’ll only upset her and Ay don’t think this is funny.’ She thrust a large sign saying BOTTLE BANK, which Ferdie had put in the porch, into his hand. ‘Ay left a note sayin’ Ay was bringing Gwendolyn Chisleden’s nephew and his fiancee to see over the cottage. They’re getting married in April. You mayte have shaved and got dressed.’
Then she gave a gasp of horror as she took in the chaos behind him: overflowing ashtrays, glasses on every table, a floor littered with clothes, chewsticks and newspapers turned to the racing pages and washing-up rising out of the sink and along the window-sill to meet an army of mouldy green milk bottles.
Worst of all, poor Jack, unable to contain himself after a long night’s confinement, had crapped extensively in the kitchen doorway.
‘You promised to keep the place taydy.’
‘It wasn’t Jack’s fault. You know how good—’
‘It’s your fault, you aydle lad, for oversleeping.’
‘Look, I’m really sorry. Have a drink, everyone,’
Lysander called over Marigold’s shoulder. ‘No, actually I haven’t got any. Why don’t you all go down to The Pearly Gates and chalk up a stiff one on my account while I get dressed and clean the place up?’
‘No thanks, I’m driving,’ said the man in the dufflecoat. ‘I’ve come to repossess your TV and video machine.’
‘I’m about to watch the 2.30,’ said Lysander furiously. ‘And there’s
After they’d all departed, Lysander was reduced to listening to the race over the telephone, which cost a bomb because Hannah’s Uncle wouldn’t go into the starting gates for ages, before storming home, five lengths clear at 25-1. Lysander was about to ring up Ladbroke’s and shout at them that he could practically have settled his account if he’d been allowed his bet, when he was distracted by a photograph of Arthur on the mantelpiece.
He’d been so miserable about Kitty that he’d forgotten to ring Rupert to find out how poor dear Arthur and utterly bloody Tiny were getting on.
56
As Lysander drove through Penscombe past grey-blond houses, and a little Norman church where generations of Campbell-Blacks were buried, he noticed a betting shop. Rare in such a tiny village, it was no doubt patronized by
