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Far worse, after Bonny’s horrible jibes about her being a ‘lascivious old lady’, Etta had been very off-hand with Valent and refused all his invitations. Then she grew increasingly and miserably aware of how much she had come to depend on his friendship and kindness, as snatches of music or poetry reminded her of the lovely evenings they’d spent together.

She was desperately broke. Martin was grudging about helping her repair her car and the damage caused by the floods. The blackberries she used to pick while walking Priceless were over. She’d eaten all the apples which hung over her fence from Valent’s orchard. Pavarobin was most put out that she no longer mixed cake and croissants with his birdseed. She imagined the fish in Valent’s pond mouthing reproachfully when she no longer passed by to tend his garden. Gwenny and Priceless had got so used to chicken and liver she felt as disconsolate as a restaurateur trashed by A. A. Gill when they flatly rejected tinned or dried food.

Conkers baked in the oven soaked in vinegar and threaded with string for Drummond’s birthday were equally spurned, Drummond displaying no interest in ‘boring old nuts’. Later Etta received an irate call from Romy: had she no idea how much damage conker fights caused, had she not heard of Health and Safety?

Etta longed to send the conkers to Valent, and thought wistfully what fun they could have had playing with them. Only the rose she had grafted for him, growing on her window ledge since the flood, seemed a link with the past.

Her great fear was that Mrs Wilkinson, now over the cough and match-fit, would have to be sold, because none of the syndicate could afford training fees any more.

One cold October evening, coming out of the village shop she bumped into Mop Idol and, hoping for news of Valent, asked her home for a cup of tea. Mop Idol looked so thin and pale compared with her usual lovely blonde buxom self that Etta wished she’d been able to afford to make sloe gin this year. There were only two teabags left, Etta hoped she wouldn’t want a second cup, but when she asked after Joey, Mop Idol burst into tears. He had failed to keep up the mortgage payments. He was so overdrawn that the bank was threatening to repossess the house. Last week he’d put the wages on a horse which had lost and he was betting maniacally to recoup his losses.

‘Isn’t there still work,’ Etta felt her voice go thick, ‘at Badger’s Court to be done?’

‘Valent’s away, you know how involved he gets, in the States. He’s launching a night-light called Guardian Angel, made by his Chinese factory, to stop kids being frightened of the dark. Wish he could invent something to stop grownups being frightened,’ sobbed Mop Idol.

Remembering how she’d told Valent about Poppy’s terrors, Etta nearly wept too.

‘Oh Etta, what am I going to do?’ went on Mop Idol. ‘I’ve got four children and I don’t think I can work any harder.’

‘Of course you can’t.’ It would be even worse if she knew about Joey and Chrissie. Thank God, Joey had not got Chrissie pregnant.

Etta felt so sorry for her, and it also brought home how in the past she’d relied on Valent for help. If she had just picked up the telephone she was sure he’d have helped Joey, but no longer.

Mop Idol then set out for the Fox, which only paid £5 an hour. ‘Least it’s helping in the kitchen, not in the bar, so people won’t see how dreadful I look,’ she said, vanishing into the night. ‘Thank you, Etta, for being so kind!’

Morale was also rock bottom up at Throstledown, where the staff had had to disinfect every centimetre of yard to get rid of cough germs.

Overwhelmed with restlessness, Etta took her torch and wandered up through the rustling leaves. At least the rustle meant no rain and firmer ground for tomorrow.

At a meeting in the Fox last week, there had been a strong move, led by the Major and Shagger, to sell Mrs Wilkinson and cut their losses. Dora, however, back from New York and bursting with plans, had reminded the room that Mrs Wilkinson’s website was still receiving a thousand hits a day, and the fan mail begging her and Chisolm to come back to the race track was still flooding in.

‘There’s a public hunger out there,’ pleaded Dora. ‘Racing is crying out for a really charismatic horse ridden by a really charismatic jockey.’

‘Then Rafiq must ride her,’ insisted Phoebe. ‘A member of our ethnic minorities would be …’

‘Far less marketable than a beautiful girl on a gutsy little mare,’ snapped Dora. ‘Marius is putting up Amber. They both get mare’s allowances.’

Everyone recognized that this might be Willowwood and Marius’s final race. The money lent him by Painswick had gone on feed bills.

As a last hope, because she was so well and rested, Marius had entered Mrs Wilkinson for a two-mile four-furlong chase at Cheltenham on Saturday. She would be running well below the handicap but what the hell. Excellent prize money of £55,000 had attracted some big hitters. They included Rogue, who was forging a strong relationship with Rupert, on Lusty and Killer on Ilkley Hall. Despite it being early in the season, both jockeys were even more fiercely competitive and travelling to every meeting to get rides where they could win.

Arriving as a vast yellow moon was rising, Etta found the Throstledown yard deserted except for Tommy, who had fallen asleep in the tack room. The others had gone to the pub to drown their sorrows and spend their lack of wages. The open half-doors of the empty boxes were like cavernous eye sockets. Etta gave an old piece of blackberry and apple pie to Chisolm. To Mrs Wilkinson she gave half a packet of Polos and a serious talking-to.

‘It’s your last chance, Wilkie, it’ll break your heart and all ours if you have to be sold. You’d die living with Harvey-Holden,’ Etta shuddered, ‘and he’d sack Chisolm for starters. Jude would probably eat her for tea. Everyone needs your help. Tommy, Rafiq and Painswick will lose their jobs if you don’t get your hoof out. Marius is desperate for a winner. You owe it to us, Wilkie, you’ve had such a long break.’

Mrs Wilkinson looked and felt wonderful, her silver mane lustrous, muscle like iron beneath her gleaming pewter coat. She
pretended to be asleep. Her good eye was closed, but from the lower lid of the empty socket of her blind eye, infinitely pathetic, as if to say ‘I did have life once’, sprouted three long black eyelashes.

‘You’ve been so brave and come such a long way since I found you in the woods,’ whispered Etta, ‘but so many people’s lives have been wrecked by the floods. Please help us.’

Mrs Wilkinson pretended to be asleep but she was listening.

One source of help which had been withdrawn was Corinna and Seth’s grand Shakespeare evening in aid of the flood victims. This had fallen through because Corinna refused to participate if Bonny was involved.

‘She must be debarred from the Bard.’

Martin was so appalled that his darling Bonny should be so despised and rejected, he called on Corinna to mediate and got a bucket of water tipped over his head. All this provided a great deal of chunter-fodder in the minibus on the way to Cheltenham.

Dora, who’d fed the story to the press, pointed out that the three radio masts on Cleeve Hill looking down on the racecourse must be Seth, Corinna and Bonny playing the three witches in
Macbeth
.

‘“When shall we three meet again?”/“In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”’ intoned Dora, glaring at the Major. ‘That’s very symbolic. If the syndicate folds and this is Wilkie’s last race as our horse, heaven knows when we will all meet again.’

‘She’s got to win,’ quavered Tilda, or how would she ever see Alan?

Alas, from Mrs Wilkinson’s point of view, it had rained very heavily in the night, but at least a watery sun was breaking through a gap in the charcoal-grey clouds.

When they arrived Rupert Campbell-Black’s Lusty, mean, moody and magnificent, as was his master, was prowling round the parade ring, followed by Ilkley Hall looking sleek but slightly porky after his summer break. He was followed by Cosmo Rannaldini’s Internetso, who’d won his last three races, and a flash French gelding called Julien Sorel, on whom Lord Catswood had rather ostentatiously spent
£250,000, as a twenty-first birthday present for his son Dare.

Mrs Wilkinson had been reluctant to get into the trailer, but the moment she and Chisolm stepped out on to the Cheltenham courtyard leading to the stables and heard the cheers of her admirers, many of whom waved ‘Welcome Back Wilkie’ placards, she perked up.

‘You’re a Saturday horse now, Wilkie,’ Tommy told her fondly.

Down in the parade ring, more well-wishers fighting for space laughed and applauded as she strutted past, big grey ears flopping through the holes in a silly green straw hat Dora had brought her from Mexico as a publicity gimmick.

‘There’s Tommy,’ cried the punters. ‘There’s Etta, where’s Valent? There’s Chisolm. There’s Amber in the green silks. Isn’t she pretty? There’s Rafiq who rode her earlier in the year. He’s hot. He’s riding that big brown one today.’

Bullydozer, huge, lumbering, pouring with sweat because Vakil had shaken a fist and cursed him in the pre-parade ring, was madly in love with Mrs Wilkinson, who’d protected him and admitted him to her gang shortly after he arrived. Now he followed her everywhere and looked round in admiration as Mrs Wilkinson, who had no desire to be held up by anything, dragged Tommy across the grass, sending owners and trainers leaping for their lives, to greet her syndicate, nudging Marius in the ribs: ‘I’m going to win for you today.’

‘Not unless you take off that bloody hat,’ grumbled Marius, as shaking hooves with Painswick, pretending to fall asleep on Etta’s shoulder, showing off, Mrs Wilkinson demonstrated once again how she adored an audience.

Brandishing a microphone, Alice Plunkett sidled up to a seething Harvey-Holden. ‘Nice to see your old mare back on form,’ she said slyly.

‘Looking like the seaside donkey she is,’ snarled Harvey-Holden. ‘What possessed Marius to think she’s got a hope in this race? And don’t think the Rev Niall giving her the last rites is going to help. She and Bullydozer don’t stand a chance.’

In retaliation, as soon as Amber mounted her, Mrs Wilkinson gave three terrific bucks to show how well she was, then, thrashing her plumy tail, giving a squeal of rage, took a lunge at her old enemy, Ilkley Hall.

‘Keep control of that brute,’ howled Harvey-Holden. ‘Neither of you have learnt any manners since you’ve been off the track.’

‘Hear, hear!’ sneered Killer, who’d been surreptitiously texting illegal tips from the weighing room.

The wolf whistles of the crowd did not appease blonde Tresa.
Being the head lad’s partner had not brought her any perks. She was overworked, had not been paid for the last month and now she was leading up Bullydozer and Rafiq, who’d joined the yard long after she had.

Michelle, who was leading up Ilkley Hall, smiled at her smugly. ‘Let’s have a drink and catch up next week.’

‘I’d keep her on a loose rein to relax her,’ called out Dare Catswood from the heights of a quarter-of-a-million-pounds’ worth Julien Sorel, as a hopelessly over-excited Mrs Wilkinson carted Amber down to the start.

Next moment Bullydozer, having caught another glimpse of Vakil, fled past, startling Julien Sorel, who immediately took off, scorching past Amber.

‘Nice to see you so relaxed,’ she shouted.

They were all out. ‘Are you ready, jockeys?’ called the starter. The flag fell, the tapes flew, they were racing.

As Bullydozer, a lunatic front-runner, set off, binoculars leapt to eyes, race cards were scoured, as despite competing with two ex-flat horses, Lusty and Julien, he shot fourteen lengths clear. After the first circuit he showed no sign of letting up.

‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Joey, ‘Josh told me to back him to lose.’

Rogue, as usual, chose to hover at the back and join the leaders at the last fence, particularly as it once again gave him the bittersweet pleasure of admiring Amber’s graceful haunches, lust riding Lusty.

Gradually, Julien Sorel, Ilkley Hall and Internetso reduced the gap between themselves and Bullydozer.

Tommy, knowing what was at stake, watched the race through her fingers. Marius, in the last-chance saloon, was smoking with his back to the course. Mrs Wilkinson, mid div, was bustling along easily.

‘Lovely girl,’ cajoled Amber.

In front of her, Internetso, Julien Sorel and Ilkley Hall were toughing it out up the hill, turning the turf black with their hoofprints, white plumes of breath rising from their nostrils as they overtook Bullydozer, who’d run a gallant race.

‘Go for eet, Amber,’ yelled Rafiq as now in fourth place she passed him.

But there was no room for a little one.

‘Go back to the Pony Club, snotty bitch,’ yelled Killer, glancing around. ‘We’re not letting you through.’

Mrs Wilkinson thought different. The crowds at Cheltenham remember it to this day. Glimpsing back through her legs,
realizing Rogue was about to swoop, Amber, using Ilkley Hall’s plump quarters as a guideline, jinked Wilkie at a right-angle right, then right-angle left like a polo pony, then right-angle left again, three sides of a square, before putting on a phenomenal burst of speed and drawing away from the leaders.

Heartened by the crowd bellowing her name, their cheers driving her forward, Mrs Wilkinson belted up the home straight, somehow escaping her pursuers.

That same moment Bullydozer, like Count Romeo, seeing his dear mentor and protector surging ahead, responding to Rafiq’s whip and pounding heels, caught the leaders on the hop, scorned Rogue’s late run and passed the post hardly a length behind Mrs Wilkinson.