Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

I knew nothing about the efficiency of his remedies, but I was definitely impressed.

‘How do you get the horses to take pills?’ I said.

‘In an apple, usually. We scoop out half the core, put in the tablet or capsule, or indeed just powder, and replace the plug.’

So simple.

‘And incidentally, I make most of my own pills and capsules. Some, like comfrey, are commercially available, but I prefer to buy the dried herbs in their pure form and make my own recipes.’ He pulled open one of the lower drawers under the work-bench and lifted out a heavy wooden box. ‘This,’ he said, laying it on the work surface and opening the lid, ‘contains the makings.’

I looked down at a whole array of brass dies, each a small square with a pill-sized cavity in its centre. The cavities varied from tiny to extra large, and from round to oblong.

‘It’s an antique,’ he said with a touch of pride. ‘Early Victorian. Dates from when pills were always made by hand — and it’s still viable, of course. You put the required drug in powder form into whatever sized cavity you want, and compress it with the rod which exactly fits.’ He lifted one of a series of short brass rods from its rack and fitted its end into one of the cavities, tamping it up and down; then picked the whole die out of the box and tipped it right over. ‘Hey presto,’ he said genially, catching the imaginary contents, ‘a pill!’

‘Neat,’ I said, with positive pleasure.

He nodded. ‘Capsules are quicker and more modern.’ He pulled open another drawer and briefly showed me the empty tops and bottoms of a host of gelatin capsules, again of varying sizes, though mostly a little larger than those swallowed easily by humans. ‘Veterinary size,’ he explained.

He closed his gem of a pill-making box and returned it to its drawer, straightening up afterwards and casting a caring eye around the place to make sure everything was tidy. With a nod of private satisfaction he opened the door for us to return to the outside world, switching off the fluorescent lights and locking the door behind us.

A car was just rolling to a stop on the asphalt, and presently two recognised figures emerged from it: Dissdale Smith and his delectable Bettina.

‘Hello, hello,’ said Dissdale, striding across with ready hand. ‘Calder said you were coming. Good to see you. Calder’s been showing you all his treasures, eh? The conducted tour, eh, Calder?’ I shook the hand. ‘Calder’s proud of his achievements here, aren’t you, Calder?’

‘With good reason,’ I said civilly, and Calder gave me a swift glance and a genuine-looking smile.

Bettina drifted more slowly to join us, a delight in high heeled boots and cuddling fur, a white silk scarf round her throat and smooth dark hair falling glossily to her shoulders. Her scent travelled sweetly across the quiet cold air and she laid a decorative hand on my arm in an intimate touch.

‘Tim the saviour,’ she said. ‘Calder’s hero.’

The over-packaged charm unaccountably brought the contrasting image of Ginnie sharply to my mind, and I briefly thought that the promise was more beckoning than the performance, that child more interesting than that woman.

Calder took us all soon into his maxi-cottage sitting-room and distributed more drinks. Dissdale told me that Sandcastle had almost literally saved his business and metaphorically his life, and we all drank a toast to the wonder horse. Four further guests arrived — a married couple with their two twentyish daughters — and the occasion became an ordinarily enjoyable lunch party, undemanding, unmemorable, good food handed round by the manservant, cigars offered with the coffee.

Calder at some point said he was off to America in the New Year on a short lecture tour.

‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘I’ll be talking to health clubs, not horse people. American racehorse trainers aren’t receptive to me. Or not yet. But then, it took a few years for Newmarket to decide I could make a contribution.’

Everyone smiled at the scepticism of America and Newmarket.

Calder said, ‘January is often a quiet month here. We don’t take any new admissions if I’m away, and of course my head lad just keeps the establishment routines going until I return. It works pretty well.’ He smiled. ‘If I’m lucky I’ll get some skiing; and to be honest, I’m looking forward to the ski-ing much more than the talks.’

Everyone left soon after three, and I drove back to London through the short darkening afternoon wondering if the herbs of antiquity held secrets we’d almost wilfully lost.

‘Caffeine,’ Calder had been saying towards the end, ‘is a get-up-and-go stimulant, tremendously useful. Found in coffee beans of course, and in tea and cocoa and in cola drinks. Good for asthma. Vigorous marvellous tonic. A life-saver after shock. And now in America, I ask you, they’re casting caffeine as a villain and are busy taking it out of everything it’s naturally in . You might as well take the alcohol out of bread.’

‘But Calder dear,’ Bettina said, ‘There’s no alcohol in bread.’

He looked at her kindly as she sat on his right. ‘Bread that is made with yeast definitely does contain alcohol before it’s cooked. If you mix yeast with water and sugar you get alcohol and carbon-dioxide, which is the gas which makes the dough rise. The air in a bakery smells of wine... simple chemistry, my dear girl, no magic in it. Bread is the staff of life and alcohol is good for you.’

There had been jokes and lifted glasses, and I could have listened to Calder for hours.

The Christmas party at Gordon Michael’s home was in a way an echo, because Judith’s apothecary friend Pen Warner was in attendance most of the time. I got to know her quite well and to like her very much, which Judith may or may not have intended. In any case, it was again the fairy-tale day at Ascot which had led on to friendly relations.

‘Do you remember Burnt Marshmallow?’ Pen said. ‘I bought a painting with my winnings.’

‘I spent mine on riotous living.’

‘Oh yes?’ She looked me up and down and shook her head. ‘You haven’t the air.’

‘What do I have the air of?’ I asked curiously, and she answered in amusement, ‘Of intelligent laziness and boring virtue.’

‘All wrong,’ I said.

‘Ho hum.’

She seemed to me to be slightly less physically solid than at Ascot, but it might have been only the change of clothes; there were still the sad eyes and the ingrained worthiness and the unexpected cast of humour. She had apparently spent twelve hours that day — it was Christmas Eve — doling out remedies to people whose illnesses showed no sense of timing, and proposed to go back at six in the morning. Meanwhile she appeared at the Michaels’ house in a long festive caftan with mood to match, and during the evening the four of us ate quails with our fingers, and roasted chestnuts, and played a board game with childish gusto.

Judith wore rose pink and pearls and looked about twenty-five. Gordon in advance had instructed me ‘Bring whatever you like as long as it’s informal’ and himself was resplendent in a plum velvet jacket and bow tie My own newly bought cream wool shirt which in the shop had looked fairly theatrical seemed in the event to be right, so that on all levels the evening proved harmonious and fun, much more rounded and easy than I’d expected.

Judith’s housekeeping throughout my stay proved a poem of invisibility. Food appeared from freezer and cupboard, remnants returned to dishwasher and dustbin. Jobs were distributed when essential but sitting and talking had priority: and nothing so smooth, I reflected, ever got done without hard work beforehand.

‘Pen will be back soon after one tomorrow,’ Judith said at midnight on that first evening. ‘We’ll have a drink then and open some presents, and have our Christmas feast at half past three. There will be breakfast in the morning, and Gordon and I will go to church.’ She left an invitation lingering in the air, but I marginally shook my head. ‘You can look after yourself, then, while we’re gone.’