Дик Фрэнсис - Decider

Faintly bemused, I turned towards the bar to do her bidding.

‘My treat,’ she said, opening her handbag and providing the funds. ‘Three glasses.’

Penelope followed me to the bar. ‘I’ll carry the glasses,’ she said. ‘Can you manage the bottle?’

My pulse quickened. Stupid. I had six sons. I was too old.

The bar staff popped the cork and took the money. Mrs Faulds watched in good-natured enjoyment while I poured her bubbles.

‘Do you know who I am?’ she demanded.

‘You own seven shares in this racecourse.’

She nodded. ‘And you own eight. Your mother’s. I knew your mother quite well at one time.’

I paused with the drinks. ‘Did you really?’

‘Yes. Do get on. I’m thirsty.’

I filled her glass, which she emptied fast. ‘And how well,’ I asked, refilling it, ‘do you know Marjorie Binsham?’

‘I don’t exactly know her. I met her once, years ago. I know who she is. She knows who I am. You noticed, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

I watched Penelope. Her skin looked smooth and enticing in the softly diffused peach light. I wanted to touch her cheek, stroke it, to kiss it, as I had with Amanda. For God’s sake, I told myself astringently, take a grip on things. Grow up, you fool.

‘I’ve never been here before,’ Mrs Faulds said. ‘We saw on the television about the grandstand being bombed, didn’t we, Pen? I got all curious. Then it was in Saturday’s papers of course, with your name and everything, and they said the races would go on as planned. They said you’d been in the stands when they blew up, and that you were a shareholder, and in hospital.’ She looked at the walking stick. ‘They got that wrong, obviously. Anyway, I phoned the office here to ask where you were and they said you’d be here today, and I thought I’d like to meet you, Madeline’s son, after all these years. So I told Pen I had some old shares in this place and asked if she would like to come with me, and here we are.’

I thought vaguely that there was much she’d left out, but Penelope held most of my attention.

‘Pen, darling,’ her mother said kindly. ‘This must be pretty boring for you, Mr Morris and I talking about old times, so why don’t you buzz off for a look at the horses?’

I said, ‘It’s too early for there to be any horses in the parade ring yet.’

‘Hop off, Pen,’ her mother said, ‘there’s a love.’

Penelope gave a resigned conspiratorial smile, sucked her glass dry, and amicably departed.

‘She’s a darling,’ her mother said. ‘My one and only. I was forty-two when I had her.’

‘Er... lucky,’ I murmured.

Perdita Faulds laughed. ‘Do I embarrass you? Pen says I’m embarrassing. She says I tell total strangers things I should never tell anyone. I do like to shock people a bit, to be honest. There are so many tight-lipped fuddy-duddies about. But secrets, they’re different.’

‘What secrets?’

‘What secret do you want to know?’ she bantered.

‘How you came by seven shares,’ I said.

She put down her glass and regarded me with eyes that were suddenly shrewd, besides being benign.

‘Now, there’s a question!’ She didn’t answer it at once. She said, ‘A couple of weeks ago the papers were saying the Strattons were rowing over the future of this racecourse.’

‘Yes, I read that too.’

‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘Basically, I guess so, yes.’

She said, ‘I was brought up here, you know. Not here on the racecourse, but on the estate.’

I said, puzzled, ‘But the Strattons — except Marjorie — say they don’t know you.’

‘No, silly, they don’t. Years ago, my father was Lord Stratton’s barber.’

She smiled at the surprise I hadn’t hidden.

‘You don’t think I look like a barber’s daughter?’

‘Well, no, but then I don’t know any barbers’ daughters.’

‘My father rented a cottage on the estate,’ she explained, ‘and he had shops in Swindon, and Oxford and Newbury, but he used to go to Stratton Hays himself to cut Lord Stratton’s hair. We moved before I was fifteen and lived near the Oxford shop, but my father still went to Stratton Hays once a month.’

‘Do go on,’ I said. ‘Did Lord Stratton give your father the shares?’

She finished the pale liquid in her glass. I poured some more.

‘No, it wasn’t like that.’ She considered a little, but continued. ‘My father died and left me the barber business. You see, by that time I’d learned the whole beauty trade, got diplomas, everything. Lord Stratton just strolled into the Oxford shop one day when he was passing, to see how I was getting on without my father, and he stayed to have a manicure.’

She smiled. She drank. I asked no more.

‘Your mother used to come into the Swindon shop to have her hair done,’ she said. ‘I could have told her not to marry that vicious swine, Keith, but she’d done it by then. She used to come into the shop with bruises on her face and ask me personally to style her hair to hide them. I used to take her into a private cubicle, and she’d cling to me sometimes, and just cry. We were about the same age, you see, and we liked each other.’

‘I’m glad she had someone,’ I said.

‘Funny, isn’t it, what happens? I never thought I’d be sitting here talking to you .’

‘You know about me?’

‘Lord Stratton told me. During manicures.’

‘How long did you... look after his hands?’

‘Until he died,’ she said simply. ‘But things changed, of course. I met my husband and had Penelope, and William — I mean, Lord Stratton, of course — he got older and couldn’t... well... but he still liked to have his nails done, and we would talk . Like old, old friends, you see?’

I saw.

‘He gave me the shares at the same time he gave them to your mother. He gave them to his solicitors to look after for me. He said they might be worth something one day. It wasn’t a great big deal. Just a present. A loving present. Better than money. I didn’t ever want money from him. He knew that.’

‘He was a lucky man,’ I said.

‘Oh, you dear . You’re as nice as Madeline was.’

I rubbed a hand over my face, finding no answer.

‘Does Penelope know,’ I asked, ‘about you and Lord Stratton?’

‘Pen’s a child! ’ she replied. ‘She’s eighteen. Of course she doesn’t know. Nor does her father. I never told anyone. Nor did William... Lord Stratton. He wouldn’t hurt his wife, and I didn’t want him to.’

‘But Marjorie guesses.’

She nodded. ‘She’s known all these years. She came to see me in the Oxford shop. She made a special appointment. I think it was just to see what I was like. We just talked a bit, not about anything much. She never said anything afterwards. She loved William, as I did. She wouldn’t have given him away. She didn’t, anyway. She still hasn’t, has she?’

‘No, she hasn’t.’

After a pause, Perdita changed gears with her voice, shedding nostalgia, taking on business, saying crisply, ‘So what are we going to do now, about William’s racecourse?’

‘If the course is sold for development,’ I said, ‘you’ll make a nice little capital gain.’

‘How much?’

‘You can do sums as well as anyone. Seventy thousand pounds for every million the land raises, give or take a little capital gain.’

‘And you?’ she asked frankly. ‘Would you sell?’

‘You can’t say it’s not tempting. Keith’s pushing for it. He’s actually trying to put people off coming here, so that there’s no profit in the course staying open.’

‘That puts me off selling, for a start.’