Dick Francis - Proof

‘By the tot, dear?’

‘Thirty-two tots to a bottle. That’s the single measure for spirits in all bars, racing or not. Two centilitres. One large mouthful or two small.’

Flora hardly believed me. ‘I suppose I don’t often buy drinks in bars, dear,’ she said sighing. ‘Jack does it, you see.’

In hindsight Orkney Swayle’s hand on the bottles had been lavish: generosity well disguised by a cold demeanour. And the external manners, I came to see during the afternoon, were not intentionally rude, but a thoughtless habit, the sort of behaviour one could inherit in ultra-reserved families. He appeared not to be aware of the effect he had on others and would perhaps have been astonished to know he reduced Flora to quivers.

Orkney made inroads in his gin with his regard impassively on my face.

‘Are you knowledgeable about horses?’ he asked.

I began to say ‘marginally’ but Flora didn’t want any sort of modest disclaimers on my part, she wanted Orkney to be impressed. ‘Yes of course he is, Orkney, his mother is a master of hounds and his father was a colonel and the greatest amateur rider of his generation and his grandfather was also a colonel and nearly won the Grand National...’

The faintest of gleams entered and left Orkney’s eyes and I thought with surprise that somewhere deep down he might have after all a sense of humour.

‘Yes, Flora,’ he said. ‘Those references are impeccable.’

‘Oh.’ She fell silent, not knowing if he were mocking her, and went pink round the nose, looking unhappily down at her drink.

‘Breezy Palm,’ Orkney said, oblivious, ‘is by Desert Palm out of Breezy City, by Draughty City, which was a half-brother to Goldenburgh whose sire won the Arc de Triomphe, of course.’

He paused as if expecting comment so I obligingly said, ‘What interesting breeding,’ which seemed to cover most eventualities, including my own absolute ignorance of all the horses involved.

He nodded judiciously. ‘American blood, of course. Draughty City was by Chicago Lake out of a dam by Michigan. Good strong hard horses. I never saw Draughty City of course, but I’ve talked to people who saw him race. You can’t do better than mixed American and British blood, I always say.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said.

Orkney discoursed for several further minutes on Breezy Palm’s antecedents with me making appropriate comments here and there and Flora, on the edge of my vision, slowly beginning to relax.

Such progress as she had made was however ruined at that point by the arrival from the powder room of the lady to whom Orkney wasn’t married, and it was clear that however much Orkney himself made Flora feel clumsy, his lady did it double.

Compared with Flora she was six inches taller, six inches slimmer and approximately six years younger. She also had strikingly large grey eyes, a long thin neck and luminous make-up, and was wearing almost the same clothes but with distinctly more chic: tailored suit, good shoes, neat felt hat at a becoming angle. An elegant, mature, sophisticated knock-out.

To the eye it was no contest. Flora looked dumpy beside her, and knew it. I put my arm round her shoulders and hugged her and thought for one dreadful second that I’d reduced her to tears.

‘Flora,’ Orkney said, ‘of course you and Isabella know each other... Isabella, my dear, this is Flora’s walker... er... what did you say your name was?’

I told him. He told Isabella. Isabella and I exchanged medium hello smiles and Orkney returned to the subject of American forebears.

The races came and went: first, second, third. Everyone went down each time to inspect the horses as they walked round the parade ring, returning to the box to watch the race. Orkney gambled seriously, taking his custom to the bookmakers on the rails. Isabella flourished fistfuls of Tote tickets. Flora said she couldn’t be bothered to bet but would rather check to make sure everything was all right with Breezy Palm.

I went with her to find Jack’s travelling head lad (not the unctuous Howard but a little dynamo of a man with sharp restless eyes) who said cryptically that the horse was as right as he would ever be and that Mrs Hawthorn wasn’t to worry, everything was in order.

Mrs Hawthorn naturally took no heed of his good advice and went on worrying regardless.

‘Why didn’t you tell Orkney what really happened to your arm, dear?’ she asked.

‘I’m not proud of it,’ I said prosaically. ‘Don’t want to talk about it. Just like Orkney.’

Flora the constant chatterer deeply sighed. ‘So odd, dear. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

We returned in the lift to the box where Flora wistfully eyed the still-wrapped food and asked if I’d had any lunch.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Did you?’

‘I should have remembered,’ she sighed, ‘but I didn’t,’ and she told me then about Orkney’s hate reaction to the caterers.

Orkney had invited no other guests. He appeared to expect Flora and myself to return to the box for each race but didn’t actually say so. An unsettling host, to say the least.

It was out on the balcony when we were waiting for the runners in the third race to canter down to the start that he asked Flora if Jack had found anyone else to lease his mare: he had forgotten to ask him on the hospital telephone.

‘He’ll do it as soon as he’s home, I’m sure,’ Flora said placatingly, and to me she added, ‘Orkney owns one of the horses that Larry Trent leased.’

Orkney said austerely. ‘My good filly by Fringe. A three-year-old, good deep heart room, gets that from her dam, of course.’

I thought back. ‘I must have seen her in Jack’s yard,’ I said. Four evenings in a row, to be precise.

‘Really?’ Orkney showed interest. ‘Liver chestnut, white blaze, kind eye.’

‘I remember,’ I said. ‘Good bone. Nice straight hocks. And she has some cleanly healed scars on her near shoulder. Looked like barbed wire.’

Orkney looked both gratified and annoyed. ‘She got loose one day as a two-year-old. The only bit of barbed wire in Berkshire and she had to crash into it. Horses have no sense.’

‘They panic easily,’ I agreed.

Orkney’s manner to me softened perceptibly at that point, which Flora noted and glowed over.

‘Your filly did well for Larry Trent,’ I said.

‘Not bad. Won a nice handicap at Newbury and another at Kempton. Both Larry and I made a profit through the books, but I was hoping for black print, of course.’

I caught Flora starting to look anxious. ‘Of course,’ I said confidently; and she subsided. ‘Black print’ had come back just in time as an echo from childhood. Races of prestige and high prizes were printed in heavy black type in auction catalogues: black print earned by a broodmare upped the price of her foals by thousands.

‘Will you keep her in training next year?’ I asked.

‘If I can get someone else to lease her.’ He paused slightly. ‘I prefer to run two-year-olds myself, of course. I’ve had four in training with Jack this year. I sell them on if they’re any good, or lease them, especially fillies, if they’re well bred, so that I can either breed from them later or sell them as broodmares. Larry often took one of my fillies as three- or four-year-olds. Good eye for a horse, Larry had, poor fellow.’

‘Yes, so I hear.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I saw him at the party... but that was all.’ In my mind’s eye I saw him alive and also lifeless, the man whose death had started so many worms crawling.

‘I didn’t go to the party,’ Orkney said calmly. ‘Too bad he was killed.’

‘You knew him well?’ I asked.

‘Pretty well. We weren’t close friends, of course. Just had the mutual interest in horses.’