Nothing to Lose (26 page)

‘Phone Brittany on your mobile?’ Jasmine’s brown eyes flashed fire. ‘Forget it, Ewan. No bloody way.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with Brittany. It’s to do with this race – one of the dogs – Cair Paravel. I promised his owner I’d sort something out at the start of his race. They’ve brought him down from London. See.’ He jabbed his finger at the board. ‘You’ve got him at tens, which is a bit risky with him being a stranger.’

‘Since when did you know about setting prices? I’ve got him at tens because Bess Higgins is running Smokey Jo-Jo. He always wins. And if you’re longer than five minutes I’m going to tell Clara . . .’

He grinned at her. ‘You sound just like you did in the playground. All self-righteous and indignant. You used to beat me up then when I teased Clara, remember? And I promise you I won’t hurt her. Now grab this book and I’ll be back before you know it.’

Forcing his way through the record crowd, he headed for the traps. The greyhounds were just going behind and he could see the girl – Beatrice-Eugenie – and the rock-star boy, Jinx or whatever his name was, down at the start, looking anxiously at the crowd, searching for him. Cair Paravel, he noticed, had been drawn in trap two, wearing the blue jacket, and seemed far more at ease than his owners.

Ewan nodded his head slightly in Beatrice-Eugenie’s direction and, spotting him, she grinned at him in delight. She really was remarkably pretty . . . Feeling like a complete prat, he dragged the headscarf from the pocket of his jeans and, praying that no one was watching him, stepped across the freshly raked sand towards Bunny.

Bunny was just setting the hare on its course, making sure it was firmly attached and that no wires were loose.

‘Hi, Bun.’ Ewan tried the matey approach. ‘Look, I know this is going to sound a bit mad, but could you put this on the hare before you let it go?’

‘Uh?’ Bunny blinked at the headscarf. ‘Is it a joke?’

‘No joke,’ Ewan said through gritted teeth as the starter on his stepladder showed signs of agitation. ‘Just do it. Please.’

‘OK,’ Bunny took the scarf, and, straddling the rails, with the moth-eaten hare between his knees, placed the pink and purple square over its head. ‘Nice colour this, Ewan. My mum’s got one of these. Mind you, it ought to have a matching handbag to set it off right . . . You ain’t got a handbag, by any chance?’

‘No, I haven’t got a frigging handbag!’ Ewan was trying not to look at the starter. ‘Nor a pair of hare-sized sling-backs, nor a cardie for if the weather turns chilly! Just do it, Bunny – and, no, don’t bother with tying a bow under its chin. It’s an inanimate fur ball. I’m sure it’s not too worried about its sartorial appearance.’

‘There!’ Bunny stood up and admired his handiwork. ‘Don’t he look pretty?’

The hare looked, Ewan thought, exactly like an East End Ewok. The handbag could have only improved things. However, there was no time to worry about it as the starter had already raised his flag. Beatrice-Eugenie and Jinx, he noticed, were exchanging high-fives behind the podium.

Bunny pressed his button, and the hare, the headscarf fluttering jauntily, bucketed off around the track. Within seconds the traps flew open, and the six dogs tore out into the night, sand flying up in puffs of gold behind them.

By the first bend, Cair Paravel’s blue jacket was already four lengths ahead of the rest of the field.

April really couldn’t believe that September was actually coming to an end. Despite the joy of Cair Paravel’s success at Ampney Crucis, the days since had simply crawled by. She’d been marking them off on the calendar at number 51, trying to cram as much into each waking hour as possible, knocking herself out physically so that her six hours of sleeping would be assured. So far it hadn’t worked; every night she’d fallen into bed, exhausted by waitressing at the Pasta Place, debt-collecting with Jix, and serving cocktails in the Copacabana, only to be infuriatingly mentally wide awake the moment her head touched the pillow.

All she could think about was Noah. She’d practised seeing him for the first time – her reaction, her approach, her opening lines. Should she take Bee with her, or leave her at home, for the first all-important father-and-child meeting to take place in privacy? Should she get glammed up to compete with the ex-loft-now-gîte-living woman, or should she dress as she had when Noah had loved her, in jeans and baggy sweaters, no make-up, and with her hair flowing?

These, and a million other things, had kept April awake for four weeks. But not for much longer. Tomorrow, Noah would be attending his exhibition at the Corner Gallery in Swaffield.

It being her late split shift in the Copacabana, it was nearly nine o’clock before she left the flat for the second time that evening. Cair Paravel, as befitted a champion, was sprawled on the sofa, snarling happily at Daff. Beatrice-Eugenie was sleeping soundly in the truckle bed, still honey-coloured from that glorious day at the seaside, and the only benefit of the split shift, as far as April could see, was that it meant she got back to the flat in time to bath Bee, put her to bed, read her a story, and watch her as she slept.

As Jix was chauffeuring Sebastian and Brittany to a film premier up West, it meant April having to negotiate the High Street and the dingy Bixford back streets on her way to and from the stadium alone in the dark, but tonight, she knew, that wouldn’t be a problem. Tonight she felt immortal and untouchable. She was sure if some leery dope-head loomed from the shadows, the elation she felt would enable her to punch him on the nose and send him squawking on his way.

Closing the front door behind her, she breathed in the smoky air, the scent of decaying leaves fighting the smell of diesel fumes. Although the September days were still warm, the nights already had the iced, spiced chill of autumn. With the heels of Sofia’s Manolo Blahniks clicking along the pavement – Martina had spotted the pink canvas crossover sandals and banned them two weeks previously – April set out for her final stint behind the bar.

The orange glow of the streetlights was harsh, and clashed discordantly with the yellow brightness spilling from the Pasta Place. Just like one of Noah’s paintings, April thought dreamily, as she turned up the collar of Jix’s leather jacket and hurried towards the white light in the sky that indicated it was greyhound racing as usual at the Gillespie Stadium.

How different, April thought, as she had all month, to the wonderful track at Ampney Crucis. How different Ampney Crucis had been in every way to grey and dreary Bixford. And what a difference that night had made. Cair Paravel winning the race had been extraordinary – and although the prize money had barely covered the petrol costs for the Toyota, the thrill had been stupendous.

Since then they’d risked the Gillespies discovering Cair Paravel’s identity and ownership, and entered him in a couple of minor midweek races at Catford, without the aid of the headscarf, of course, and he’d been left standing at the start. Considering that they were chancing eviction and dismissal by doing so, they’d agreed not to repeat the operation. Disappointed, April and Jix had decided that if he was ever going to make it as a champion sprinter, it would have to be at tiny out-of-city tracks with understanding managers – like that lush Ewan Dunstable – who didn’t object to draping Daff’s headscarf round the hare. However, they now knew that Cairey had the ability – if not the constant motivation – and could earn his keep.

Jix was going to get in touch with the Ampney Crucis people again and see if they had finished the rebuilding that had been planned, and enquire if maybe they could enter Cairey for a race on a monthly basis, just to keep his hand, or perhaps paw, in. Still, April thought, carefully crossing the busy ring road outside the stadium, when she and Noah got back together and moved to live in Ampney Crucis, all the subterfuge would be over, and all the problems would be solved.

With still half an hour to go before she was due back behind the bar, April followed the late-coming crowds down the stadium’s crimson entrance tunnel, with its millions of pinprick wall lights, and out into the brash glare of the amphitheatre. It was like a space station, April thought, all lights and flashing electronic boards under the black September sky, with stainless-steel walkways round the tiers of stands, and the chromium and glass viewing platforms, five restaurants, six bars, and every inch sardine-packed with thousands of noisy people.

Never having been to another stadium before, she realised now just how antiquated Ampney Crucis was. Poor things. They had no chance of Brittany Frobisher choosing them for the Platinum Trophy – which was, of course, a good thing as far as she and Jix and Cair Paravel were concerned. Maybe, in time, they’d get to know of other rural racetracks that few London dog people frequented, and Cairey could become the star of the back-of-beyond circuits.

She watched the race in progress with a professional eye now: the dogs sprinting, bumping and barging round the bends in pursuit of the Day-Glo hare, the feral, deafening roar of the punters, the torrent of commentary from the public address system, the frantic last minute ticktack of the white-gloved bookies, the row upon row of red jackets in the Tote windows. It was like another world. The Gillespie Stadium was a teeming night-time city built round greyhounds, where the staff were numbers on the payroll, not individuals. She and Jix had gawped in amazement at Ampney Crucis at the three solitary bookies’ pitches, and no Tote, no bar, no restaurant – and the fact that everyone knew everyone else’s names.

Hauling herself up the stairs towards the bar, already tired, her feet already hurting, she prayed that this last couple of hours would be easy – and give her plenty of Noah-dreaming time. Having traded her day off with one of the other waitresses for tomorrow, April wasn’t sure that she’d sleep at all tonight. She still had to decide on her outfit, and have a bath and wash her hair and –

‘April!’ Martina, wrapped in skin-tight sequins, was in corncrake mode. ‘You’re late!’

‘I’m not.’ She shrugged out of the leather jacket, and pulled the skirt down as far as it would go. ‘I’m actually five minutes early, and’. She looked around the bar. Barry Manilow and ‘A Weekend in New England’ had it practically to himself. ‘It’s not busy, is it?’

‘But it will be as soon as this race is over. With presentations and everything, it means there’s twenty minutes before the next one – and we’ve run out of sparklers.’

‘I’ll just have to set fire to the umbrellas, then,’ April muttered, easing her pinching toes behind the bar.

It was much as Martina had predicted: the next hour was a rugby-scrum rush. No one however, seemed to miss the sparklers.

Jix’s arrival at ten thirty relieved the tedium. In his smart black chauffeur’s uniform, the bangles tucked up beneath his cuffs, and with his long hair tied back in a neat ponytail under his peaked cap, he caused quite a stir amongst the micro-skirted Lycra women.

Shoving his way through the crowd, he leaned his elbows on the bar. ‘April! Have you got a minute?’

‘You’ll have to hang on – this is rocket science.’ She paused in the middle of pouring a whole flight of B-52s into lowball glasses. It wasn’t one of her favourites: the mixture of Kahlua, Baileys and Grand Marnier always seemed to want to separate at the wrong moment.

Eventually managing to get all six drinks looking reasonably the same, and covering any mishaps with two umbrellas and a mini-kebab of impaled fruit, she placed them on a tray and eased her way out into the bar. For once the recipients were housetrained, said thank you and gave her a huge tip. Still smiling her thanks, she tottered back behind the counter and pushed the ten-pound note into her pocket.

The shoes had now cut off the circulation to her toes.

‘I thought you were supposed to be in Leicester Square.’ She clung on to the bar in front of Jix, easing her feet out of the shoes, and immediately shrinking by six inches.

‘I am. I was. I’ve got to be back there in an hour to collect them when they come out. I just had to tell you something.’

‘Couldn’t it keep? Oh –’ she bit her lip – ‘it’s not about Noah, is it? They haven’t cancelled his exhibition?’

‘No – well, not as far as I know. It’s nothing to do with Noah.’

April sighed happily. ‘OK then, so what is it?’

‘Seb and Brittany were at Ampney Crucis the same night as we were.’

‘No! God – they couldn’t have been! You must be mistaken.’

‘No mistake. They chatter away in the back of that car like I’m a proper chauffeur – you know, signed the Gillespie official secrets act and all that. They were talking about the Frobisher Platinum, and about the places they’d been to, and they were discussing who was in and who was out, and all like I’d got my ears stuffed with cotton wool.’

April considered the implications. It had been a month since August Bank Holiday, and they’d both seen Sebastian a lot and Brittany a bit in that time, and nothing had been said. Therefore, even if Seb had been there, he couldn’t have seen her or Jix – and certainly couldn’t have connected Beatrice-Eugenie Padgett and Cair Paravel with two of his employees, could he? Someone – more than likely Martina would have definitely sacked them, not to mention evicted them from number 51, if he had.

‘Well, supposing you’re right, and they were there – we must have got away with it, mustn’t we? He can’t have seen us. He can’t have had a clue.’

Jix shook his head. ‘No, by some miracle, I think you’re right. I’ll tell you, it took all my powers of concentration not to steer off the road when they were talking about it, though. I had to sit there, all impassive, and I thought my heart was going to stop beating. But this is the best bit: Brittany was saying that Ampney Crucis are still in with a chance.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘No. Seriously. She’s seen everywhere now that’s tendered, and there are four stadiums left in contention. Us at Bixford, Pullet’s near Dagenham, that snazzy one at Chingford that I can never remember the name of –’

‘Bentley’s?’

‘Yeah, that’s it. And Ampney Crucis. So, three city ones, and one as far removed as you can get! My money, considering Seb’s involvement, was on us. But –’