Longshot. Part 54

'Get away.' He felt awkward at the compliment. 'I'm glad for him, anyway.'

He snaked off again and within minutes the throng began moving towards dinner, dividing into ten to a table, lowering bottoms onto inadequate chairs, fingering menus, peering at the print through candlelight, scanning their allotted neighbours. At table number six I found myself placed between Mackie and Erica Upton, who were already seated.

Erica was inevitable, I supposed, though I suspected Fiona had switched a few place cards before I reached there: a certain bland innocence gave her away.

'I did ask to sit next to you,' Erica remarked, as if reading my thoughts as I sat down, 'once I knew you'd be here.'

'Er- why?'

'Do you have so little self-confidence?'

'It depends who I'm with.'

'And by yourself?'

'In a desert, plenty. With pencil and paper, little.'

'Quite right.'

'And you?' I asked. 'I don't answer that sort of question.'

I listened to the starch in her voice, observed it in the straightness of her backbone, recognised the ramrod will that made no concessions to hardship.

'I could take you across a desert,' I said.

She gave me a long piercing inspection. 'I hope that's not an accolade.'

'An a.s.sessment,' I said.

'You've found your courage since I met you last.'

She had a way of leaving one without an answer. She turned away, satisfied, to talk to Nolan on her other side, and I, abandoned, found Mackie on my right smiling with enjoyment.

'She's met her match,' she said.

I shook my head regretfully. 'If I could write like her- or ride like Sam or Nolan- if I could do anything that well, I'd be happy.'

Her smile sweetened. 'Try cooking.'

'Dammit-'

She laughed. 'I hear the power of your bananas flambees made Gareth oversleep.'

Perkin, on her other side, murmured something to get her attention and for a while I watched Tremayne make the best of our table having been graced by the sponsor's wife, a gushing froth of a lady in unbecoming lemon. He would clearly have preferred to be talking to

Fiona on his other side, but the award was having to be paid for with politeness. He glanced across the table, saw me smiling, interpreted my thought and gave me a slow ironic blink.

He soldiered manfully through the salmon souffl and the beef Wellington while Lewis on the lady's other side put away a tumbler full of vodka poured from a half-bottle in his pocket. Fiona watched him with a frown: Lewis's drinking, even to my eyes, was increasingly without shame. Almost as if, having proclaimed himself paralytic in court, he was setting about proving it over and over again.

Glumly fidgeting between Lewis and Perkin, Gareth ate everything fast and looked bored. Perkin with brotherly bossiness told him to stop kicking the table leg and Gareth uncharacteristically sulked. Mackie made a placatory remark and Perkin snapped at her too.

She turned her head my way and with a frown asked, 'What's wrong with everyone?'

'Tension.'

'Because of Harry?' She nodded to herself. 'We all pretend, but no one can help wondering- This time it's much worse. Last time at least we knew how Olympia died. Angela Brickell's on everyone's nerves. Nothing feels safe any more.'

'You're safe,' I said. 'You and Perkin. Think about the baby.'

Her face cleared as if automatically: the thought of the baby could diminish to trivia the grimmest forebodings.

Perkin on her other side was saying contritely, 'Sorry, darling, sorry,' and she turned to him with ever-ready forgiveness, the adult of the pair. I wondered fleetingly if Perkin, as a father, would be jealous of his child.

Dinner wound to a close: speeches began. Cultured gents, identified for me by Mackie as being the Himalayan peaks of the Jockey Club, paid compliments to Tremayne from an adjacent table and bowed low to the sponsor. He, the lemon lady's husband, eulogised

Tremayne, who winced only slightly over Top Spin Lob being slurred to Topsy Blob, and a minion in the livery of Castle Houses brought forth a tray bearing the award itself, a silver bowl rimmed by a circle of small galloping horses, an award actually worthy of the occasion.

Tremayne was pink with gratification. He accepted the bowl. Everyone cheered. Photos flashed. Tremayne made a brief speech of all-round thanks: thanks to the sponsors, to his friends, his staff, his jockeys, to racing itself. He sat down, overcome. Everyone cheered him again and clapped loudly. I began to wonder how many of them would buy Tremayne's book. I wondered whether after that night Tremayne would need the book written.

'Wasn't that great?' Mackie exclaimed, glowing.

'Yes, indeed.'

The background music became dance music. People moved about, flocking round Tremayne, patting his back. Perkin took Mackie to shuffle on the square of dance floor adjoining the table. Nolan took Fiona, Lewis got drunker, Gareth vanished, the sponsor retrieved his lady: Erica and I sat alone.

'Do you dance?' I asked.

'No.' She looked out at the still-alive party. 'The d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond's Ball,' she said.

'Do you expect Waterloo tomorrow?'

'Sometime soon. Who is Napoleon?'

'The enemy?'

'Of course.'

'I don't know,' I said.

'Use your brains. What about insight through imagination?'

'I thought you didn't believe in it.'

'For this purpose, I do. Someone tried to kill Harry. That's extremely disturbing. What's disturbing about it?'

It seemed she expected an answer, so I gave it. 'It was premeditated. Angela Brickell's death may or may not have been, but the attack on Harry was vastly thought out.'

She seemed minutely to relax.