Nothing to Lose (47 page)

At ground level, the coach and car parks were already full, and queues were snaking round the turnstiles and out towards the cliff top. Frobisher’s Brewery staff, warmly wrapped up against the continuing icy weather, were moving amongst the waiting crowds, doling out tiny free glasses of their new winter beer – which Jasmine had sampled earlier and quite enjoyed – and peanuts. Doris Day, who had been trilling out all her best romantic ballads in surround sound since twilight, was currently getting the collective feet tapping with ‘By the Light of the Silvery Moon’.

All across the stadium, the themes of Valentine’s Day and the Platinum Trophy were cleverly intertwined: red roses and pink-cushioned hearts were on every post, pole and railing, while cut-out silver trophies, looking like the overspill from an FA Cup production line, adorned walls, doors, and practically anything else that didn’t move. The word ‘Frobisher’ was everywhere you looked, and still the crowds were arriving in droves.

The Ampney Crucis board members were in paroxysms of delight.

Clara and Ewan, looking quite Torville and Dean in matching red and black outfits, had been appointed greeters-in-chief, and were cheerfully showing all the local dignitaries to the posh seats in the stands, and all the various newspaper competition winners and Clara’s massive extended family to the even posher – and warmer – seats behind the glass viewing screens, where Gilbert and Eddie Deebley were serving up chicken and chips and pints of Old Ampney like it was going out of fashion.

The six greyhound finalists for the Platinum Trophy had arrived earlier, and were ensconced in a special part of the new kennel block with their connections. Ewan, Jasmine noticed, had spent quite some time down there, and had come back beaming almost soppily. After the really strange goings-on) at New Year, when he had been missing from the Frobishers’ party for hours, and had then come back with some cock-and-bull tale of having had too much to drink and fallen asleep in one of the centrally heated lavatory cubicles – which Clara had believed and Jasmine hadn’t – Ewan had actually behaved himself amazingly well. Jasmine hoped this silly smile when returning from the kennels was merely because of his love of greyhounds – and had nothing to do with a pretty handler.

Peg was wearing a 1950s style fur coat, much to Jasmine’s disgust, with stilt-high black courts and the French pleat wig. Jasmine, who had shunned dressing up on the grounds that as she’d be in the front betting line she just needed to keep warm, was wearing clean jeans, her thickest sweater and Benny’s waxed jacket.

As well as the Platinum Trophy, there were eight other races on the card tonight – all also lavishly sponsored, thanks to the hype stirred up by Brittany – and Jasmine, Roger and Allan had watched with a sense of foreboding as the out-of-town bookies set up their very flashy joints, boards and umbrellas along the rails.

‘Plenty of business here for everyone,’ Peg said, swishing her coat along the ground. ‘And it’s only for tonight. You’ll get your exclusivity zones back for the next meeting. Don’t frown so, pets.’

‘All right for her,’ Roger grumbled. ‘This could have been my swan song.’

Allan and Jasmine had looked at him in surprise. ‘You’re not going to retire, surely?’

‘Not now,’ Roger blew on his hands. ‘Not when yon Ladbroke’s laddie is going to undercut me on every bloody dog.’

The fever-pitch feeling was building rapidly. Brittany had just arrived, looking very elegant and not at all cold in a silver trouser suit and huge velvet hat, and accompanied by her parents and what appeared to be the entire remainder of the Frobisher workforce. The paparazzi pack had swooped on Brittany immediately, and she had smiled happily and confidently cracked jokes with them all. A whole area had been set aside earlier in the day for the media, and suddenly the enclosure emptied as microphones and cameras of all types were homed in on the It Girl of the moment.

Jasmine watched and tried not to be envious. Brittany, true to her word on New Year’s Eve, had made regular visits to Ampney Crucis, accompanied by a host of Frobisher ‘suits and boots’, and had proved to be truly amazing it promoting and marketing the event. Having grown to like and admire Brittany more each time they met, Jasmine really tried not to think about what would happen tomorrow when it was all over.

The trouble was, she had got so used to having Sebastian around. When he’d told her, during the dancing on New Year’s Eve, that he intended to leave Bixford, and jack in his job at the Gillespie Stadium, Jasmine hadn’t really been surprised. Everything she’d learned about him during their friendship had indicated that this was something he really wanted to do. She’d wished him luck in breaking the shattering news to his parents, and he’d said that if she could survive what had happened to her with her parents and Andrew, then what he was contemplating should be a piece of cake in comparison.

They’d danced and talked all night, and over the daybreak breakfast, Sebastian had sleepily promised her that he’d be seeing her very soon. Jasmine had returned to the Travel Lodge with the victorious Ampney Crucis crew, more hopelessly in love than ever.

Within two days Sebastian had turned up at the beach hut, with a selection of doughnuts and a holdall, explaining that after the expected parental explosions, he was now working for Frobisher’s as a sort of back-room Platinum Trophy promotions boy, and he was at her disposal. She’d swallowed the all-too-obvious retort, hugged him – trying to keep the hug friendly so as not to scare him off – and said that if he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty she was sure that Peg and the other Ampney Crucians would also welcome him with open arms.

Jasmine had also been brave enough to suggest immediately that he bagged a room at the Crumpled Horn while he was working at the stadium – just in case he’d intended to stash the holdall behind the chiffonier and leap under the poppies and daisies. As she actually wanted nothing more than Seb in her bed, this, she felt, was quite a grown-up thing to do. Sebastian Gillespie as a permanent sleeping – and waking – partner would be sheer unadulterated bliss. Sebastian Gillespie as a sort of prolonged one-night stand who was going to leave her as soon as the Platinum Trophy was over, was asking for lifelong heartbreak.

So Seb was staying in the Crumpled Horn, and for the last few weeks, while they’d been working round the clock to prepare the Benny Clegg Stadium for tonight, he had slogged as hard as any of them. He had fitted in so easily that it sometimes seemed impossible to remember a time when he hadn’t been around. But Jasmine was constantly aware that once the Platinum was over, when all the hoo-ha had died down, Sebastian would be off to spread the Frobisher word elsewhere.

And even worse, she was convinced that Sebastian was not only going to be Brittany’s business partner, but would no doubt also resume his role as her part-time lover.

He’d laughed when Jasmine, over a huge fry-up in the Crow’s Nest Caff some days before, had voiced this opinion.

‘When the hell have I had time to be anyone’s part-time lover? I haven’t done anything since new year, except work thanks to you. I collapse into bed – alone – every night, and I’m asleep before my feet have left the floor.’

‘You know what I mean . . .’ Jasmine had mopped up all the delicious juices with a doorstep of white bread and butter. ‘You and Brittany were together in a snuggly-up way before all this happened – and you’ll be together again after it’s all over ... I mean, I’m really glad that you’ve left Bixford, if that’s what you wanted to do, and by working on promotions for Brittany you’ll have a lovely itinerant life, but – ’

‘But what?’ Seb had balanced a mountain of beans on his last piece of fried bread.

‘I’ll miss you.’

He’d grinned at her. ‘I’ll write to you – and send you doughnuts. It’ll be just like old times.’

And then Bunny and Muriel had turned up, as someone always did when she and Sebastian were together, and said there was some new crisis at the stadium and could she come and sort it?

The stadium had been open for business as usual all through the preparations, and Jasmine, as Benny Clegg – the Punters’ Friend, had set odds, negotiated prices, won and lost money on at least ten races, three nights a week, ever since Sebastian had arrived. Still fascinated by the fact that she was a bookie, he hadn’t tired of watching her work, and even volunteered to replace Muriel on writing up when she had her tea breaks.

Jasmine had teased him mercilessly. ‘God, you ran a multimillion-pound business for your dad – had your fingers in all sorts of iffy pies – you go out with the financial whizz-kid babe of the century – and you still can’t pay out quicker than that? And what’s that supposed to be? Even Clara was better than you – and she was hopeless.’

And he’d poked his tongue out at her and they’d giggled at each other, and Roger and Allan had shaken their heads over Benny Clegg behaving like a schoolgirl.

‘First race in ten minutes, Jas.’ Gorf, in his starter’s kit of shiny suit and bowler hat and carrying his green flag, tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Better start laying some off.’

So, with her chalk flying across the board, Jasmine wrote up the names of the six dogs in the first race, undercut the William Hill odds on each one, and took a deep breath as the punters started piling on their money. Muriel was working like lightning behind her, but even she was having trouble keeping up.

‘God, if it’s like this now, what on earth is it going to be like by the time we get to the Platinum?’

‘Murder,’ Muriel said with relish from beneath her pixie hood. ‘Sheer bloody murder. But we’ll both be going home a darn sight richer than most of these mugs.’

An hour and a half later, with six races behind them, and the crowd seething like maggots in a jar, Jasmine trudged off with the full money satchel to decant her takings in Peg’s office safe. There had never been a night like it, and would probably never be another – but it didn’t matter. The Benny Clegg Stadium was well and truly on the greyhound map and would always stay there. Jasmine smiled to herself. It was all she had ever wanted for Grandpa, wasn’t it? And for her? Well, almost.

On her way back to her post, shoving through the crowds, she was practically knocked senseless by a killer whiff of Eau Sauvage. Verity and her father, both buttoned and belted in woollen overcoats, were shoving in the opposite direction.

‘Dad!’ Jasmine, completely forgetting herself, threw her arms round his neck. ‘God – this is amazing! I never thought . . .’

‘Couldn’t let this pass, could we?’ Philip’s voice was gruff as he patted her. ‘Damn good show, Jasmine. Not that I approve, but–’

‘Oh, get away, Phil!’ Verity pummelled his arm. ‘You’re as proud as punch of the girl. You said so. I for one will be coming here a lot more. Haven’t had so much fun in ages. And all the telly people and everything! I’ve just seen Des Lynam, I think . . .’

‘And we’ve got a bit of news,’ Philip smiled indulgently.

‘The house – our house, or ex-house, I suppose – is on the market. Your mother and that young bastard have decamped to Bournemouth – couldn’t stand the heat. Heard from the solicitors this morning . . . So, you won’t have to worry about bumping into them again.’

‘Nor will you,’ Jasmine said. ‘Thanks for telling me, though. Um – maybe we could get together for lunch or something . . .’

‘Just what I’ve been saying,’ Verity beamed. ‘We’ll have you round for a Sunday – next weekend, maybe? I do a lovely roast with all the trimmings and your dad is really partial to my creamed rice pudding.’

Jasmine, knowing that her father had existed for years on Yvonne’s ready-cooked low-calorie meals, reckoned he’d fallen on his feet, big time.

‘I’d love to,’ she said, surprised to find that she meant it. ‘Thanks. That’d be great.’

Kissing them both, she hurried back to the rails, wiping away a tear.

Sebastian was standing on her crates chalking up the next race. She stood and looked at him for a long moment. It was the picture she’d keep inside her head for ever: Seb in jeajis and a huge navy-blue sweater, his hair falling forward, concentrating. With all the noise around them, and the lights, and the thousands of people, and the yapping of the greyhounds from the kennels, it was like a virtual reality Lowry painting. There’d be something new to see each time she conjured it up.

‘What are you doing?’ She peered up at the board. ‘Oh, right – OK . . .’

‘Expected me to have got it wrong, did you?’ Seb grinned down at her. ‘I wouldn’t dare. I’ve learned a lot in the last weeks, Jas, just standing and watching. I might still be a bit ham-fisted with the paying out, but I’m getting a good idea of how to make a book. See – I’ve even studied the form here . . . and this one is easily the best, so I’ve put it in at twos.’

‘It’s great. Couldn’t have done better myself. Are you planning to put me out of business?’ She climbed up on to the orange box beside him. ‘Or does this mean you’re part of Benny Clegg for the rest of the evening?’

He nodded. ‘Muriel said you were doing a roaring trade, and could do with a bit of help. It’s all amazing, isn’t it?’

‘Thanks to Brittany.’

‘And you.’ Sebastian ruffled her hair. ‘You’ve done a brilliant job. I’d never dreamed it could be like this. At Bixford the meetings just happened, organised and run by an unseen committee. There was no hands-on and, for me, no excitement. It was like an every-night-of-the-week soap opera – you could miss dozens and still pick up the threads. ’ ‘We’re off again.’ Muriel leaned forward. ‘Brace yourselves . . .’

The crowds, seeing the prices on the boards, and hearing Gilbert announce the names of the runners, surged forward. Jasmine took a deep breath and once more turned into Benny Clegg.

The atmosphere now was electric. The last race of the evening – the Frobisher Platinum Trophy – had at last been announced. Gilbert had done his build-up and handed the microphone to Peg, who’d given a brief history of the Benny Clegg Stadium and how the whole thin had come about for those who didn’t already know. Then Brittany had spoken on behalf of the sponsors and got the loudest applause because she was so famous.