Jo tipped her paper plate covered with chop bones and steak scraps into a black plastic bag. Then she found her plastic mug of red wine and was going back to where Miranda and Bill were sitting when she spotted Carole, from Hildegarde. She was on her own so Jo went up to her. 'Hello. Do you know many people here?'
‘A few.' Carole regarded Jo as if she didn't want to be taken pity on by a fifty-year-old woman. A fifty-year-old man would have been quite different.
‘Is Marcus here?' Jo was aware that Carole didn't want to talk to her but was determined to get some sort of conversation out of her, just for the challenge. She was also a bit curious to meet her old acquaintance after all these years.
‘Oh no. He's on the Continent, on a job.'
‘What kind of job?’
It had seemed a reasonable question but Carole looked at Jo with incredulity. 'He's delivering a yacht. It's what he does. Don't you know that?’
Only slightly tempted to tell Carole that she had known Marcus before she was born Jo said, 'No.’
Carole made a disbelieving gesture. 'But he's famous in the barge world. He delivers everyone's boats. He's in Monte Carlo at the moment.'
‘On a barge?' A picture of The Three Sisters' broad and sweeping lines in such an exotic setting made Jo smile.
‘No – what Marcus calls a gin palace.'
‘Ah. It's a shame you couldn't be with him.’
An expression crossed Carole's face indicating that perhaps there'd been a discussion about her being with him and that the answer had been no. She shook her head. 'I have to look after Hildegarde. At least, during the rally.’
A man wearing a yachting cap came up. 'Hi there, Carole.' He kissed her firmly on the cheek and put his arm round her waist. 'Where's Marcus these days then? He never answers his phone when I ring him.'
‘He's in Monte Carlo. I was just telling this lady. He's very busy.'
‘Oh, I know he's busy,' said the man, not looking at Jo. 'But I need him. I've got to get Lucretia down to Faversham for some cosmetic work.'
‘Couldn't you put her in a taxi?' said Jo quietly.
Carole looked at her in horror and confusion while Miranda, who had joined the group, chuckled.
‘Sorry,' said Jo, 'is Lucretia not your wife?’
The man finally acknowledged Jo's existence. He looked at her for a few seconds while he worked out what she'd said, and then laughed. 'No, she's my barge, but that's quite a good joke.'
‘He'll be turning it into one of his own any minute,' muttered Miranda in Jo's ear. 'You wait.’
The group seemed to enlarge, everyone asking or talking about Marcus. 'Of course, he's expensive,' said a man who seemed to be a friend of Mr Yachting-Cap, 'but he's the best. If you've got three hundred grand's worth of vessel to move from A to B, you don't want to make mistakes.’
Jo gasped and then said, 'Surely if you own a barge, you want to drive it yourself? I don't mean I would want to, I'm only renting. But if I'd bought one…' Her voice tailed away.
Only one of the group agreed with her. 'Me too. I wouldn't pay an arrogant sod like Marcus to take my boat about.’
So he was an arrogant sod, was he? Well, he'd had that potential, even back then, thought Jo, although she noticed Carole hadn't even blinked at the man's caustic remark.
‘It's all right for you,' said Mr Yachting-Cap, who was squeezing Carole without apparently knowing he was doing it, 'you're a Navy type.'
‘Nothing to do with that. I just like to paddle my own canoe, or steer my own barge, whichever applies.' He smiled at Jo and Miranda, who realised she knew him.
‘Bruce! I didn't see you arrive! How lovely to see you!' Miranda said excitedly. 'Is Angela with you?'
‘She's sorting her mother out. I didn't bring William -that's my barge,' he said to Jo, quickly.
‘So you see, you're not so hot as all that,' said Mr Three Hundred-Thousand-Pound's-worth-of-Barge.
‘She's in France at the moment and we're only here on a flying visit,' said Bruce. 'We've got a very nice mooring on the Canal du Midi.’
Jo felt suddenly tired but realised she was actually bored of all this boat talk.
Miranda, probably feeling the same, said, 'Bruce, come and say hello to Bill. He'll be furious if you and he don't have an opportunity to chew the fat. Come on, Jo.' Expertly, Miranda gathered her chosen people and led them away from the group.
‘God, I hate Sebastian,' she said. 'Just because he's a multi-millionaire he thinks he's God's gift to women. He'd sleep with anyone.’
Not me, thought Jo. He showed no interest in me whatsoever. It was galling, she decided, to be spurned by someone who'd sleep with anyone, even if she wouldn't have slept with him if he were the last man between her and childlessness.
Later that night, Jo heard Dora come in and settled down to sleep. Her mind was whirling: while she was not exactly sure of her new vocation she felt she had lots of possibilities and it was just a matter of finding her favourite. She and Miranda had discussed the subject once again when they had retired to Hepplewhite with Bill and Bruce for a nightcap. Miranda had been full of ideas, from her training to teach English as a foreign language to becoming a matron at a boys' prep school, 'and end up marrying Mr Chips'. Jo had protested that she wasn't young or pretty enough and even if she had been, she didn't want a husband, but as she did like mothering people, the idea had some merit. Her last thought before she fell asleep had been that cherub-restorer did have a nice ring to it.
The following morning over breakfast Dora told Jo about her evening with Tom and their planned day at the races.
‘The races! That sounds such fun!' said Jo.
‘You wouldn't have wanted to go, would you? I've said I'll take Tom now.'
‘Of course, take Tom. Honestly, Dora, the thought of just pottering around by myself for the day after all this socia bility is just bliss. You go and jolly well enjoy yourselves.'
‘I should be job-hunting, really, not "gadding about" as my mother would call it.'
‘Your sense of duty is too strong and your father did send you the tickets, you have to go.' Jo patted Dora's hand. 'If it will make you any happier, you could look up the addresses of some job agencies on the Internet today and then you can go and visit them after the races.
Assuming, that is, that you don't win your fortune and never need to work again.’
Dora smiled. 'I am quite tempted by the boatyard idea, actually, but I can't help feeling it's a bit of a cop-out. I think I need to look at all my options.'
‘Well, have a look round in London and then you will have done your duty in that direction, too.’
They spent the day sorting themselves out and generally recharging their batteries.
'Well, this is fun,' said Dora, looking at Tom as they sat opposite each other on the train the next day. He was looking strange in a borrowed suit and shoes that were too big for him.
‘It's all right for you, your clothes are your own.'
‘Only some of them! The skirt and little top are mine, but the jacket is Jo's. It is a bit big, but I quite like the drapey look myself.’
Tom grinned. 'You look great. And thank you for paying for my train ticket.'
‘Well, thank you for coming with me. I probably should have taken Jo, of course, but she said she wanted some time to herself.' Although Jo had been very convincing, Dora did actually suspect that she'd just wanted Dora to spend some time with someone her own age. 'A day out will do you good,' she had said, and had heaped much praise on Dora's dad for sending her the tickets, especially when they realised they included eating in a corporate tent.
They enjoyed their train journey. It was easy to spot fellow race-goers, although this wasn't a specially laid-on train.
There was a party of women in diaphanous summer frocks and hats, sharing bottles of champagne to get them in the mood. There was a foursome of businessmen, going to meet important shareholders, hoping to soften them up for more major investment. And there were couples who hadn't been to the races before, and, like Dora and Tom, were not sure what to expect.
They discovered all this quite easily. The women and the businessmen were in the same carriage and the couples were spotted as first Tom and then Dora went to the buffet car for coffee and a 'nose', as Tom put it. One of the things Dora discovered about Tom that she really appreciated was his fondness for people-watching. She loved it herself, but John had always got annoyed if he'd taken her out for a meal and she hadn't given him her undivided attention. Often Dora was more interested in the conversation going on behind her. Settling back into her seat for a bit of a rest, Dora realised that was another reason it was as well she and John had split up.
There was a bus waiting for the train that took them through the leafy streets of Cheltenham to the racecourse. By this time there was a feeling of camaraderie between the people who had all come by train and Dora and Tom had got used to being thought of as a couple. As long as we know we're not one, thought Dora, it's OK.
‘I've just thought of another dare for you,' said Tom as they walked through the ticket gate.
‘Already? Can't it be one dare a day? I've already agreed to put the bets on. Not that we can really afford it.'
‘I'm afraid I've decided that putting bets on here is just too easy for it to count as a dare. No, what you've got to do now is to get us a really good tip.'
‘Sorry?' Dora stared at him, not entirely convinced she understood.
‘You've got to find some grizzled old jockey and ask him if he's got any tips. It doesn't have to be a jockey, of course,a shiny-suited tipster would be fine, as long as you think you can trust him.'
‘Tom-'
‘Listen, Dora, we're at the races. It'll be much more fun watching if we've got a little interest in them, but as you said, we haven't got much money, which means we can't afford to waste it. You must find out which horse has got the best chance in which race.'
‘That's really tough.'
‘You know perfectly well I'd do it. You're jolly lucky I'm not asking you to find a sugar daddy to actually give you money to bet with.’
Dora gulped at the thought. 'OK, but let's have a good look round everywhere first and get our bearings. There are lots of retail opportunities too – we can look, even if we can't spend.’
Dora waited until they'd had a drink before she set off on her mission. Tom would wait for her somewhere back in the drinks tent. She left him quite happily reading the paper, a pint in front of him. She wasn't a great one for talking to strangers, unlike Karen who had once just asked a man for five pence to get a car park ticket without even offering him the pennies in return. Karen would have found it easy to find the right sort of man to give them a winning tip. Dora was much less confident and had been happy to trot along behind Karen while she did all the brave stuff.
However, now she was on her own with her challenge she did feel curiously elated. After all, she didn't absolutely have to do it, if she really didn't want to, but she found she did want to.
She went first to the Tote but she didn't think there were any real gamblers there. She wanted a dyed-in-the-wool professional, someone who earned his living from his wits, who knew how to pick a horse without sticking a pin in a list or because they liked the name. She went outside, to where the bookies called out the odds, did tick-tack over their heads and offered complicated bets there didn't seem a hope of winning. They were a colourful crowd. Dora spotted the businessmen from the train. They had a couple of anxious-looking men in pale grey suits and obviously new trilby hats with them. Dora guessed that they weren't English and this was their first time on a racecourse.
Dora didn't think she'd find her tipster here. There were too many people making too much noise. She went to look for the horses.
She had never been horsey as a child. They were too big and slippery to her mind, and her mother hadn't encouraged her. It was, after all, a very expensive hobby. However, she had always appreciated the animals from an aesthetic point of view.
The saddling enclosure was filling up with horses for the first race. It was too late for that race, Dora decided, partly because she wanted not just a tip for Tom's challenge, but a winning tip – for her own satisfaction.
She watched the horses being led round the ring, mostly by girls, but also by the occasional young man who seemed to be wearing clothes too old for him – the ubiquitous trilby and tweed jacket, or shiny suit.
She was admiring a dark bay horse being led by a girl who looked too slight for the job when she spotted a man on the opposite side of the ring. He was looking at the horses with a knowing eye and made notes on his racecard from time to time.
She edged round so she was standing near him. She wasn't certain yet that he was her man. She wanted to check him out a bit more first.
Fortunately for her dubious abilities as a spy, another man came up to her quarry and started talking to him. When he opened his mouth he revealed himself to be Irish. Dora knew it was probably a stereotype but she had always believed that the Irish could pick a good horse when they saw one, especially if they were at a racecourse.
She couldn't get much information from their conver sation because it seemed to be about someone they both knew who'd fallen off a horse and was now in plaster 'from his toes to his tush'.
Having decided to ask these two men what they thought of the next race, which horse was likely to finish and which would still be running by teatime, she just had to think up what to say. Eventually she took a deep breath, put on her bravest, most Karen-like smile and went up to them.
‘Good afternoon, I'm so sorry to bother you but I need your advice.’
Both men stopped talking and looked at her. She couldn't really tell what they thought of her but as they smiled politely and didn't run off in the opposite direction she valiantly ploughed on.
‘The thing is, I've a wager to carry out.'
‘Oh yes?' one of them asked.
‘My friend bet me I couldn't pick a winner for the next race – not this one, I know I'll be too late – and I really need some help.' Another Karen-like smile caused them to smile back with just the right hint of indulgence. Dora didn't care if she was patronised if they gave her the information she needed; after all, she didn't know one end of a horse from another, they had every right to talk down to her.
‘Well, my dear, were you hoping for a horse to win or an each-way bet?' said the man she had spotted first.
‘I'm sorry, you're going to think I'm awfully ignorant, but what's an each-way bet?'
‘It's a place – first, second or third. You have to put on twice the stake, but your chances are better,' said the other man.
‘Um – I think an each-way bet. My friend didn't specify.’
‘What sort of a friend would make you do something like that when you don't know much about it?’
Dora smiled. 'A friend who's hoping I won't do it,' she said, although she knew this was a bit of a slur on Tom, who probably did want her to achieve the goals he set for her.
‘Right now, let's have a ponder,' said the first man, getting out his card. 'What do you think, Jerry?’
Jerry got his card out too. 'You don't think we'd better discuss this over a drink? Will you have a drop of some thing with us, my dear?’
Dora hesitated. There was no way going for a drink with two strange Irishmen was part of the bet.
‘C'mon now, if your friend is happy to let you run around the racecourse picking up tips, he can't object to you having a quick one while you're doing it,' said the one who wasn't Jerry. He put his hand into Dora's. 'My name's Gene.'
‘I'm… Dora.'
‘You don't sound too certain of that, Dora. Are you sure you're not called Dorothy or something instead?’
She laughed. 'Oh, I know I'm Dora, I'm just not sure if I should go for a drink with two men I've never met before in my life.'
‘If you don't mind my saying so, Dora,' said Jerry, 'you did pick us up. It was not the other way around. If we're prepared to trust you, I think you should trust us.
‘Now, we'll go to that bar over there. You'll be sur rounded by hundreds of people so don't worry. Then we can study the form and win you some money.’
Dora weighed up the odds and decided going for a drink in a public place was indeed fairly safe.
`So, tell us, Dora, do you come to the races often?' said Gene.
‘I've never been before. My father sent me tickets. He and my mother were invited to some corporate entertain ment thing and couldn't go, so my friend and I came instead.'
‘So, what will you have to drink?' shouted Jerry when they reached the bar, which was so noisy Dora was surprised he could hear her answer which was, to her shame, 'Half a lager.'
‘Not at all,' said Gene. 'Have a wee whiskey. It'll do you no harm at all.’
As it was too noisy a place to have a proper argument, Dora accepted meekly.
They found a corner that was a bit quieter, and the three of them nursed their drinks while Gene and Jerry studied their racecards, and then their copies of the Racing Post.
‘We've missed the first race, but we can do something with the others,' said Gene.
‘I like the look of Jordan River, myself,' said Jerry.
‘Let's not have any of your deviant fantasies,' said Gene. 'We all know Jordan River is not half as good as she looks. What about Swiss Chalet, now?’
Dora tuned out, sipping her whiskey, which was neat and quite large. She felt so reckless, drinking strong drink with men she didn't know while they picked a horse for her. It was a good feeling. Tom would be proud of her.
‘Well, my dear,' Jerry said after what seemed like an age. 'How much of a gambler are you?'
‘And you don't have a lot of time to make up your mind,' added Gene.
It was over an hour before Dora found Tom again. He was sitting surrounded by the women who'd been on the train, and was decidedly anxious.
‘What happened to you?' said one of the women.
‘Tom here thought you'd been kidnapped,' said another, waving a bottle of champagne at her.
‘Have a drink,' said a third.
‘I don't think I should,' said Dora, feeling her whiskey, rather. 'I'm sorry to have worried you, Tom. But I did my dare! Now, did you see who won the second race?'
‘No,' he said. 'At least, I can't remember who won. Why? Did you have money on it?'
‘In a manner of speaking. Did I miss the finger buffet?' Dora realised she was hungry and felt she ought to have something to sop up the whiskey anyway.
‘Oh no, it's all in there,' said one of the women. 'We left you the fish-paste sandwiches.'
‘That was crab pâté,' said her friend, who was now, for some reason, wearing a cowgirl hat. She must have seen Dora looking at it. 'We're on my hen do,' she explained. 'The hat's obligatory.'
‘Hen do's were not like this the first time I got married,' said one of her number, who was cheerful and Scottish. 'We just got plastered in the pub and tried to pull the barmen.'
‘Just because you didn't have a hen do the second time you got married, you mustn't rain on my parade.’
Dora remembered that she and Karen had been going to spend a day at a health spa for her hen do, but she'd cancelled the wedding before they could go. She brushed that thought hurriedly aside.
‘I've nothing against hen dos, hen,' said the Scottish woman confusingly, 'it's just if you're a hen when you're a chick, by now we must be old boilers.’
The others hooted with laughter.
‘Enough with the poultry, let's have another drink!' shouted the Chief Hen.
Tom took Dora by the arm and led her out of earshot. 'What happened to you?' he repeated.
‘Well, like you said, I found someone to give us a tip.
Only there were two of them and they took me for a drink first.'
‘Dora! You shouldn't go for drinks with strange men! Did your mother teach you nothing?'
‘I'm trying to shrug off the shackles of what my mother taught me, and you're helping me. You told me I needed to be more adventurous..
‘You know what I mean. Anyway, how much money did you put on?’
Dora felt it wasn't the right moment to tell Tom that she'd had to visit a cashpoint machine before she could go to the betting office. 'Oh, nothing to worry about. Tell me how the food thing works? I'm starving.'
‘The girls told me you just have to show your ticket once and then turn up as and when.'
‘The girls, Tom? That's not very politically correct.'
‘Oh no, they're definitely girls. They referred to them selves as that. After all, they're on a hen do.’
Dora laughed and headed towards the food tent.
‘So, are you hungry?' Tom asked as they showed their tickets. 'Or did your tipsters feed you as well as fill you with strong drink?'
‘How do you know it was strong drink?’
‘I can smell it.'
‘Oh, sorry. I'd better eat something, but we must be quick. It's almost time for the next race.’
Tom couldn't understand why Dora got more excited and yet more anxious as each race was run. At the end of the last race she shouted herself hoarse.
‘You've really got into this, Dora. I'm surprised.'
‘Don't distract me,' she yelled at him. 'If I lose con centration he won't win!'
‘Who won't win?'
‘Our horse!'
‘So is this the race you put the bet on?'
‘Yes. And no. And all the others.'
‘What?'
‘I'll explain later. Come on, Jim Boy!' she yelled, jumping up and down.
‘It's an accumulator,' said an Irish voice in Tom's ear. 'If this one comes home, your girlfriend's won you over a hundred pounds.'
‘Cool,' said Tom. 'Come on, Jim Boy!’
They fell into The Three Sisters that evening just as Jo was contemplating making herself a sandwich.
‘It was fantastic,' said Dora, kissing her cheek, aware that she was a bit drunk.
‘Really cool,' agreed Tom. 'Dora won us loadsa money.’
‘How did you do that?'
‘She chatted up these two Irishmen and they worked out an accumulator for her.'
‘That sounds very brave, Dora! Good for you.'
‘Oh, it was one of my dares.' Seeing Jo's blank expression, she went on, 'Tom is determined to turn me into a brave new woman. He's got five dares for me and I have to do them all. Then he'll give me a diamond tiara as a reward.'
‘In your dreams, sweetheart,' said Tom. 'I'll give you something as yet unspecified.'
‘You said that very well,' said Dora. 'Not sure I'dattempt a word like – like "unspecified" in my condition. Oh, that came out OK.'
‘We had a few drinks on the train coming home, to celebrate,' Tom explained confidentially.
‘I think I'd worked that out,' said Jo, amused at their high spirits.
‘And the fish and chips are on me!' said Dora, producing a plastic carrier and dumping it on the counter.