The Enchanted Read online

  This was by far his favourite time of year – the run-up to Cheltenham, and yet another chance to win the most coveted racing trophy of them all, the Gold Cup. So far Eddie Rampton had been twice denied a triumph he thought was his as two of his horses, on separate occasions, had galloped up the famous hill after the last fence looking certain to win, only to tire and be caught at the post by horses trained by two of his most despised rivals. But this year was different: this year he knew he had a worthy favourite in My Pal Joey, who had won his two preparatory races this year with the sort of consummate ease that is the hallmark of an exceptional horse.

  My Pal Joey was a large horse, standing at a full seventeen hands, and for his size he was blessed with stamina, an exceptional cruising speed, and a prodigious jumping ability. Such was his presence that he normally had his rivals beaten a long way out simply by dominating the race with his sheer physical presence. Given a trouble-free run-up to March, Rampton considered he had his best chance yet to triumph in the Gold Cup. His only regret was that the horse’s terminally ill owner had known that he himself wasn’t going to make it to Cheltenham and so had sold his horse in order that someone else could enjoy the thrill of having not only a runner in the Gold Cup but possibly the favourite and perhaps even the winner. But even though he had lost an owner of long standing, Rampton very soon realised that My Pal Joey’s new owner was a man after his own heart. A real go-getter, someone determined to win at all costs. There was no coming second in this man’s book – it was win, and win whatever the cost.

  So as soon as the entries were published in January the favourite’s new owner and his trainer put their heads together to hatch various stratagems, shortly after which Eddie Rampton initiated his campaign of disseminating misinformation, a process that began with the last-minute withdrawal of My Pal Joey from the big race on Boxing Day.

  On the other hand, Rory and his four owners put all their cards on the table as far as their horse was concerned. Not that there was a lot of undue interest in his possible participation in March even when his name appeared among the initial entries. To the racing and betting public he was a largely unknown and hard to rate quantity, certainly a promising novice steeplechaser but one whom the cognoscenti were ready to dismiss because of his size, his lack of breeding, his relatively inexperienced trainer and the fact that the horse had only run on what they liked to call the gaffe tracks, the smaller and less fashionable country racecourses. So when the bookmakers made their first ante-post lists it was no surprise that the price quoted against The Enchanted to win the Grade One Cheltenham Gold Cup on 13 March, to be run over three miles two and a half furlongs for five-year-olds and upwards, was a hundred and fifty to one.

  When Alice noted the apparent generosity of the odds, she began to fashion a plan of her own, and once she had considered it carefully she made two telephone calls, one to her bank for information on the state of her current account and the other to her friend Millie for advice on a certain bit of protocol.

  As far as the owners of The Enchanted went, no one had yet realised who the new owner of the star of Eddie Rampton’s yard was. Rory’s secretary Maureen so far had been the only person to spell out the name, but since she had no idea that Lynne had once been Mrs Fortune, and not so very long ago at that, the name of the new owner did not mean anything to her. The Enchanted’s owners were not always glued to racing on the television or reading every item of gossip in the racing papers, and by the time they turned their attentions to any other horse that might be taking on their own in March the story about My Pal Joey’s changing hands had long gone cold. So it was not until Grenville and Lynne happened to be sitting in front of the television in Lynne’s now fully furnished apartment one wet Saturday afternoon that the penny finally dropped.

  The racing was from Ascot where one of the contests, according to Grenville, was looked upon as being a good trial for any Gold Cup candidates who wanted to pit themselves against stiff well-made fences on what was reckoned to be a seriously testing course. Before the race was run, to kill time as the horses were cantering down to the start, one of the presenters informed the viewers that he was about to interview the owner of a horse which had been one of the favourites for the Gold Cup until recently, when it had suffered an injury that had, according to the interviewer, indeed prevented the animal from running in this prestigious Ascot race this very afternoon.

  Whereupon the new owner was introduced to the public.

  ‘Bloody hell – will you look at who it is?’ Lynne exclaimed. ‘By all that’s Satanic and evil, it’s only my bloody ex!’

  And sure enough, there was Gerry, wearing a fashionably overlong black overcoat with matching fedora, Maddy by his side, dressed in a red leather overcoat and a Dr Zhivago-style fur hat.

  ‘What do they look like?’

  ‘I’m too much of a gentleman to say,’ Grenville murmured. ‘An updated Bonnie and Clyde, perhaps?’

  ‘But he doesn’t know any more than I do about racing! All he knows about is blooming dodgy motor cars!’

  ‘I’ve always been mad about racing and horses,’ Gerry was saying, smiling urbanely into the camera. ‘Ever since I was a nipper.’

  ‘Baloney,’ said Lynne. ‘First time he ever went racing was with me.’

  ‘My dad always had horses,’ Gerry went on.

  ‘And they pulled carts,’ Lynne retorted.

  ‘So, you know, horses have always been part of my life.’

  ‘Mine as well,’ Maddy simpered, tightening her grip on Gerry’s arm. ‘I had my first pony when I was seven. He was a little skewbald called Paintbox.’

  ‘And it lived in a toy cupboard,’ Lynne hissed.

  ‘Now, now, Linnet,’ Grenville remonstrated. ‘One mustn’t speak ill of the brain dead.’

  ‘Course I’m sad that the guy who owned the horse previously won’t be here to see him run,’ Gerry continued. ‘But I think he’ll be watching anyway. From his cloud up there.’

  ‘He’ll be taking Holy Orders next,’ Lynne said.

  ‘Or holding up banks,’ Grenville remarked. ‘Particularly in that coat.’

  ‘So what’s the news on your horse, Gerry?’ the interviewer was asking. ‘Is he over the setback that prevented him from running in the King George?’

  ‘He’s certainly back in work,’ Gerry replied, returning to the script Eddie Rampton had prepared for him. ‘It’s a bit early to say whether he’s fully over it. It was a real nasty infection.’

  ‘Got right in between his poor toes,’ Maddy added helpfully.

  ‘Right in his hoof,’ Gerry corrected her as quickly as he could. ‘Right in the – you know. The outside bit.’

  ‘Inside the outside bit.’ Maddy again.

  ‘The bit right under the shoe,’ Gerry said with a nod. ‘Very painful. Anyway, as I said, he’s back in work now but we’re taking it day by day.’

  ‘And if he does make it to Cheltenham,’ the interviewer said, ‘which of course we are all hoping he does, which horses do you most fear?’

  ‘You would have to say County Gent,’ Gerry replied, looking at his most knowledgeable. ‘County Gent, certainly.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Maddy agreed. ‘You would have to say County Gent.’

  ‘And the Irish horse,’ Gerry added. ‘Spun Silk.’

  ‘Right.’ Maddy nodded. ‘And the Irish horse, Spun Silk. Course.’

  ‘I think most of all you’d have to say County Gent,’ Gerry said, summarising. ‘And the Irish horse Spun Silk.’

  ‘Good. Thank you both very much,’ the interviewer concluded. ‘Hope to see you both again in March.’

  ‘You bet!’ Maddy said, leaning to camera and holding up her free hand clenched in a fist. ‘Cheltenham here we come!’

  ‘They really should give them a show of their own,’ Grenville said, lying back on the sofa with a deep sigh. ‘One of those in-depth chat shows.’

  ‘Must be because of us,’ Lynne said, sitting back on the sofa. ‘Only reason Gerry mus
cles in on something is when he thinks his precious nose is out of joint.’

  ‘Really?’ Grenville pulled a face. ‘Rather an expensive get-you, isn’t it?’

  ‘You don’t know Gerry, Grenville,’ Lynne said, still staring at the screen. ‘And you certainly don’t know Maddy. Hold on – isn’t that that American’s horse? Fly The Flag? You know, that nice bloke we met at Huntingdon.’

  Grenville checked the runners in the paper just as the odds were being flashed up on the screen.

  ‘Right, it is,’ he said. ‘Should be favourite.’

  ‘It is favourite,’ Lynne replied. ‘Two to one.’

  They watched the race, a three-mile handicap with Fly The Flag carrying top weight of 11st 9lb, a burden that certainly didn’t stop him winning as he liked, sauntering home in the soft going by an easy four lengths.

  ‘Another one for the notebook,’ Grenville observed. ‘He also holds an entry for the Gold Cup.’

  ‘But we’re not sure we’ll go to Cheltenham,’ Harrington Lovell said when he was interviewed in the unsaddling enclosure. ‘If the ground dries up, which it usually does, he might be found out in the speed department. There are some fast horses entered, and really our fella’s bred to stay, so we might be looking at Aintree instead. It’s always been on the wish list, the Grand National, and you know, from the way he ran today, he could go close.’

  ‘Yes,’ Grenville agreed from his armchair. ‘But we did beat him somewhat easily at Huntingdon, so although he has to come into the reckoning he’s not my major worry.’

  ‘Who is, sweetheart?’ Lynne wondered, getting up to go and make them both some tea.

  ‘Your ex’s horse, I suppose,’ Grenville replied. ‘A little bird told me they’d laid him out to win.’

  Kathleen turned the television off in her cottage and sat back in her chair. In front of her on the floor stood her bags, already packed ready for the journey she intended to make that evening, a journey she had been intending to undertake in fact for the past three days, but having warned Rory of her intention she had found herself finding plenty of reasons for delaying her departure, all of them concerning Boyo, who she kept discovering needed just a little bit more care and supervision with every day that passed.

  She had hoped that Rory would notice her increased diligence and invite her to stay on just in case Boyo needed her, even though they both knew there was nothing about the horse to cause even the slightest concern. But he had said nothing at all, not one word. In fact, if she didn’t know Rory for the kind-heart that he was, she would have said he was doing his best to ignore her altogether. So finally, now that Saturday had arrived, the day, she had told Rory, on which she simply had to leave because of pressing matters at home, Kathleen realised that she was going to have to be as good as her word and take her leave of the place where she knew she had found true happiness.

  Of course, what she had just seen televised from Ascot racecourse was only making her job harder. Most of the talk had been about the Gold Cup, and although no mention was made of The Enchanted in the entire broadcast the fact that the chances and merits of all the favoured horses were being so readily discussed and compared only served to make her departure more of a terrible wrench. For a moment she had even seriously contemplated going to find Rory to ask him directly if perhaps she could stay, pleading her special relationship with Boyo as her reason, only to remember it was too late, since Rory was at Ascot and Blaze was coming to pick her up in half an hour to take her to the station.

  ‘You sure you know what you’re doing, Kate?’ Blaze asked her yet again as he drove her off to Salisbury.

  ‘Just leave it alone, will you?’ Kathleen replied, turning away from him. ‘And leave me alone as well.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Blaze said. ‘You’ve completely lost it.’

  ‘That’s my business,’ Kathleen insisted. ‘The whole thing is a lot of baloney anyway. Boyo’ll be fine, and so too will everyone else involved.’

  ‘Sure,’ Blaze said. ‘Everyone, that is, except you.’

  All the way back from the race meeting, which he left early, Rory found he could do nothing but think of Kathleen. The main reason he had gone to Ascot was not to see the competition but to be away from the yard when Kathleen left it, thinking that if he remained he would only do what he had resolved not to do, namely beg her to stay. Now, as he was driving back in more than a slight panic, he knew that was exactly what he should have done and never minded the consequences. Life at the yard was not going to be the same without the beautiful Kathleen and he had let her go. Worse, he had let her go without having made any really serious attempt even to interest her, let alone win her heart, and when he realised this he felt ashamed of himself for making such a feeble fist of it.

  Leaving before the second last race, he reckoned, gave him an outside chance of getting home before she left, but thanks to an accident on the motorway slip road his journey took him half an hour longer than usual and so he missed her.

  ‘You haven’t missed her by that much, Guv,’ Teddy told him when he asked. ‘She can’t have left more than twenty minutes ago.’

  Without stopping to think, Rory got back into his car at once and headed fast for the station. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her, but since Salisbury was a good fifty minutes’ drive away he reckoned he’d have time enough to come up with a good reason for asking her to change her mind – that is, if he managed to get there before her train left. Motoring faster than he had ever driven, he made it – by the time he had hurled himself out of the car and run into the station – with a minute to spare.

  He saw her just about to get into the train and started to run along the platform waving frantically at her, hoping to catch her eye before it was too late, but she wasn’t looking his way. She had turned away to embrace the man who had come to see her off, to throw her arms round his neck and lay her head on his shoulder. Rory recognised the man immediately and stopped dead in his tracks, about to turn tail and leave when she looked up and saw him. Rory froze, unable to move or think. They stared at each other and then after a moment Kathleen put up one hand and slowly waved to him over Blaze’s shoulder. Absurdly enough, Rory found himself waving back.

  As they watched each other without moving, people arriving to catch the train at the last minute hurried down the platform, pushing their way through the throng and into the nearest available carriage, while Rory and Kathleen remained exactly where they were, until Blaze finally turned round and saw the man who was also his employer staring at the girl in his arms.

  Finally, as the guard blew his whistle and the train prepared to leave the station, Rory began to walk towards Blaze and Kathleen, pointing at the train, which was now starting to move.

  ‘You’ll miss it!’ he called, beginning to run. ‘You’ll miss your train!’

  By the time he reached her the train was moving too fast for her to get on it – not that Kathleen showed the slightest intention of trying to do so. Instead she waited calmly for Rory to reach her.

  ‘Your train,’ he gasped. ‘You’ve missed it.’

  ‘So I have,’ Kathleen said, looking round at the departing transport. ‘I have so.’

  ‘Well, now you’ll m-miss everything!’ Rory shouted over the increasing noise. ‘You’ll n-never catch your ferry now!’

  ‘Ah no, she won’t do that either,’ Blaze agreed with a smile.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re both looking so pleased about,’ Rory yelled. ‘I thought the whole intention was for K-K-Kathleen here to return h-h-home.’

  ‘That was her intention, guv’nor, not mine,’ Blaze assured him.

  ‘No. No, it wouldn’t be, would it?’

  ‘No, it would not indeed. No, sir.’

  ‘But even so,’ Rory stuttered, turning his attention to Kathleen, who was still staring at him. ‘I don’t understand why y-you didn’t get on the train.’

  ‘Because I saw you, Mr Rawlins,’ Kathleen said, as if it were obvious. ‘Wh
en I saw you running on to the platform, sure I thought there must be something wrong back at the yard which would explain why you were here. What else was I to think now?’

  ‘There’s nothing wr-wrong,’ Rory assured her through gritted teeth, realising that the whole thing had now gone seriously pear-shaped. ‘At least not at the yard, there isn’t.’

  ‘So what is it, then?’ Kathleen enquired earnestly, as Blaze picked up her bag and began to saunter back down the platform. ‘Something must have happened to bring you here.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Rory said in haste, turning his attention to Blaze. ‘And where does he think he’s going with your bags?’

  ‘There’s precious little point in staying here, boss!’ Blaze called over his shoulder. ‘The horse has long bolted.’

  ‘So what was it, Mr Rawlins?’ Kathleen enquired once more, catching up with Rory. ‘What exactly’s the matter?’

  ‘There’s nothing the m-matter, Kathleen,’ Rory said slowly, trying to mind what he said, knowing Kathleen’s propensity for taking things wrong. ‘It’s just—’ He stopped to scratch his head. ‘It’s just – it’s j-just – it’s jer – just – it’s just that I don’t w-wan— I don’t think you should go, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’ Kathleen wondered, shaking her head so that a thick lock of dark hair fell across her eyes. ‘Why ever not?’ she asked again, brushing the hair slowly aside and looking right at him. ‘Is it something in particular? Or just nothing really at all? Just a whim?’