'Conor!' she murmured, hanging on.
'Better now?'
'Just don't move away from me. I may have to lean on you.'
'Anytime, darling.' With a cheery greeting, Conor thrust them into the group.
Natasha was only dimly aware of the conversation around her. The effects of the margarita seemed to be amplifying as the alcohol flushed through her. She didn't care now - she was just relieved to have Conor beside her. She refused to think about anything other than his presence, made sure she laughed at the right jokes, nodding and smiling at those around her. Her heels sank again and, feeling giddy, she rested against him for support. The garden was so crowded it didn't seem to matter; people at this end were shoulder to shoulder in clusters. When she felt Conor's hand reach behind her back for hers, she took his little finger and held it, trying to convey to him her thanks. He had saved her, stopped her making a fool of herself. It was such an easy step to take, such a natural progression from where they had been, that it was some minutes before she thought that the heat on the back of her neck might not be due entirely to the sun.
She tuned out of the conversation and turned her head, just far enough that she could see Mac standing some twenty feet away. He was staring at her hand. Unbalanced, flushed, she dropped Conor's finger. Afterwards she realised that this was the worst thing she could have done, with its implication of guilt. But the damage had been done.
Mac's expression told her he had gone. Possibly a long time before.
'You should really get a proper haircut one of these days,' Linda said, behind her. In her screensaver, Natasha could just make out the downturn of her secretary's lips. The office tea-towel was slung over Natasha's shoulders, catching little feathers of dark-blonde hair as she worked.
'No time.' Natasha was back to the file in front of her, glasses at the end of her nose, stockinged feet on the desk. 'Got to read through these files. I'm due back in court at two for closing submission.'
'But your highlights have grown out. You need touching up.'
'Can't you do it?'
'I haven't done anyone's highlights for years, and especially not in a lunch hour. You earn enough. You should get a proper job done. One of those celebrity hairdressers.' She picked up a lock of hair and let it fall.
Natasha snorted. 'My worst nightmare.'
'You could make something of yourself if you tried.'
'You sound like my parents. Is there any tea going?'
She speed-read the last page of her notes, then closed the file and reached for the one that sat under it. Her phone beeped. Mac had texted her twice that morning asking when he could come to the house. She had put him off for almost ten days now.
Sorry. Too much on tomorrow. Maybe Thurs. Will let u know
she typed. She had barely put her phone down when it beeped again.
Half an hour. Weds evening.
She didn't want to face him. There was so much going on here. He had stayed away for a year; another day or two wouldn't hurt him. She typed back.
Cannot get away. Judicial review. Sorry.
But today he appeared to have lost patience:
I need my stuff. Next Friday latest. I can pick it up without you being there. Pls advise if locks changed.
She flipped her phone shut, regrouped her thoughts. 'Anyway, Lin,' she said, 'why should I go to a proper hairdresser? Your haircuts are fine.'
'Steady on the praise now, Mrs McCauley.'
'Miss.'
'Oh, yes. I was going to ask you if you wanted to be "Ms" on your correspondence . . . I've got to reorder.'
'Why would I want to be "Ms"?'
Linda shrugged. 'Dunno. You're just that type.'
Natasha ducked forwards, away from the scissors, and spun round in her chair. 'What type?'
Linda was unabashed. 'Independent, wants everyone to know it, and glad to be.' She considered this. '"Ms" is a been-through-the-mill sort of title. Not oh-gosh-I'm-still-hoping-for-the-white-wedding, like "Miss" is.' She placed her hands on either side of Natasha's head and swivelled it so that she faced the front.
'Been through the mill,' Natasha repeated. 'I don't know if you've just insulted me or said something quite nice.'
Ben came in and put another file on the desk. She leant forward to pick it up, prompting a curse from behind her.
'Linda, did that social worker ring back about Ahmadi?' She wasn't sure what she was going to ask but she needed clues: how could she have been so wrong about the boy? Had anyone else worked out that his history couldn't have been as he claimed?
'Ahmadi . . . Is that the kid who was in the paper? The one you represented? I thought I recognised his name.' Linda missed nothing. 'He attacked someone, didn't he? Surprising, really. Didn't seem the type.'
Natasha didn't want to discuss this in front of her trainee. 'They never do. Come on, Linda, you must have finished. I'm due in court in twenty minutes and I haven't had a sandwich yet.'
'How'd you go?'
Conor was waiting for her outside court. She leant forward and kissed him, no longer concerned about the glances of other lawyers. They were an established couple now. Two separated, older, wiser people. Nothing scandalous there. 'Got them. I knew I would. Pennington was woefully underbriefed.'
'That's my girl.' Conor stroked the back of her head. 'Nice hair. Dinner?'
'God, I'd love to, but I've got to sort out a ton of paperwork for tomorrow.' She saw his face cloud and reached for his arm. 'A drink would be good, though. I've hardly seen you all week.'
They walked briskly through the relative peace of Lincoln's Inn and out into the crowded, bustling street. The sun bounced off the pavement as they crossed to the pub, so that Natasha was peeling off her jacket before they got there.
'I can't make this weekend,' Conor said pre-emptively, as they stood at the bar. 'I've got the boys. I thought I should let you know early.'
Conor's two sons were five and seven, apparently far too damaged and vulnerable to be alerted to the existence of Daddy's girlfriend even though he had been divorced from their mother for more than a year. Natasha tried not to look as disappointed as she felt. 'Shame,' she said lightly. 'I'd booked the Wolseley.'
'You're kidding.'
She tried to smile. 'Nope. It's our six-month anniversary, in case you hadn't noticed.'
'And there was me thinking you were a hard-headed unromantic.'
'You don't have the monopoly on nice gestures, you know,' she said coquettishly. 'I guess I'll have to find someone else to take.'
This possibility didn't seem to trouble him. He ordered their drinks, then turned back to her. 'She's going to Dublin for the weekend.' His ex-wife was always 'she'. 'So I've got them from Friday till Monday morning. God only knows what I'm going to do with the pair. They want to go ice skating. Ice skating, would you believe? And it's eighty degrees out.'
Natasha sipped her drink, wondering whether it was worth volunteering. If he had to refuse her company a second time there would be a definite atmosphere. Pretending there was no possibility that she might want to accompany him made it safer, easier, for all. 'I'm sure you'll work something out,' she said carefully.
'What about Monday night? I could come straight to yours if you like. Be oiled and ready for you.'
'I guess I'll take what I can get,' she said, keeping any hint of bitterness out of the words. Why wouldn't he introduce her to his sons? Was theirs a transitional relationship, so that it was not worth them getting to know her? Or, worse, did she give off an unmaternal air that made him afraid to introduce them?
Natasha dealt with conflict all day in court, and the past year had left her with little appetite for it in her personal life. 'Monday, then,' she said, smiling.
They finished their wine, discussed work issues, and Conor proffered advice on a judge she had to face the following week. They parted at the pub door, and she returned to her office for another hour. She rang her mother, listened to a litany of her father's health concerns, and tried to imp
ly a social life when her mother asked about it. At nine she locked up, walked out into the late-summer evening and hailed a taxi home.
She watched the London streets fly by, couples strolling lazily out of pubs and restaurants. The world was full of couples when you were alone. Perhaps she should have gone out with Conor, but her work was the only constant in her life. If she let it slide to have dinner with him, her whole life would have been for nothing.
Suddenly she felt overwhelmingly sad and fished in her bag for a tissue, then forced herself to look at one of tomorrow's files. C'mon, Natasha, get a grip, she willed herself, wondering why she felt so unbalanced. The answer wasn't hard to find.
She closed the file, then studied the text messages that had just arrived. She took a deep breath and typed,
Locks unchanged. Come when you like. If late, please leave light on and shut curtains when you go.
Four
'The sweetest of all sounds is praise.'
Xenophon, On Horsemanship
When she arrived Ralph was at the gates. She looked at him quizzically, then checked her watch. Twelve years old, he rarely got up before midday. School, Ralph claimed, was an optional extra. He kept largely nocturnal hours. 'Maltese Sal's having a rumble,' he said, gesturing at the truck across the road. Sal was shrugging on his jacket, checking his mobile phone. 'You coming?'
'Where?'
'On the flyover. The one by the football pitches. It's only going to take twenty minutes. Come on - Vicente says we can get a lift on the back of his pick-up.'
He looked at her expectantly, a lit cigarette wedged into the corner of his mouth. 'I helped Sal get the mare ready. She's busting out of her skin.'
She understood now why there were twice as many vehicles as usual outside on Sparepenny Lane. Men were climbing in, slamming doors, their voices low in the still morning. She could hear ignitions starting, smell anticipation in the atmosphere. Sarah glanced again at her watch, unsure.
'Cowboy John's already there,' Ralph said. 'Come on. It'll be a laugh.'
She should have been schooling her horse but Ralph was standing there, waiting. And she was the only one in the yard who had never seen a race.
'Come on - it'll probably be the last of the summer.'
She hesitated just a moment, then ran after him towards the red pick-up truck, whose engine was already sending purple plumes of exhaust fumes into the still morning air. She hurled her bag into the back, took Ralph's hand and hauled herself up on to the pile of ropes and tarpaulins. Vicente told them to hold on, then pulled out into the quiet street behind four other vehicles, each full of dark-haired men, cigarette smoke trailing out of partially open windows.
'He's got a big bet against the travellers at Picketts Lock,' Ralph shouted, over the noise of the engine. They ducked briefly as a police car went past.
'Which mare?'
'He's racing the grey.'
'The one that kicked the sulky out?'
'He's got a new one and a better set of blinkers. He's got money riding on this, I tell you. Big money.' He held his hands six inches apart, a wide grin splitting his face.
'Don't tell Papa I came,' she yelled. He took a deep drag, then flicked his cigarette butt into the road. Some things went without saying.
Unlike greyhound racing, or Sunday-league football, sulky racing was an intermittent and unheralded fixture in sporting annals east of the City. There was no stadium, no floodlit track on which the best horses could compete, no regulated bookmaker to offer short odds or shout for punters. Instead, several times a year, the competitors would arrange to meet at some desolate location with a pre-agreed length of smooth Tarmac.
The fact that this 'track' was inevitably a public road was no obstacle to the prospect of a race; pick-up trucks from each side would simply head out shortly after dawn when traffic was low. They would manoeuvre alongside each other until they occupied both lanes of the dual-carriageway, and then, at agreed points, slow to a halt, hazard lights flashing, so that any other vehicles were forced to stop behind them. Before the other drivers even worked out what was happening the rival horses would be on the road, their lightweight two-wheeled sulkies behind them. The race would be run down a mile stretch, accompanied by shouting, sweating, swearing, a blur of legs and whips, the drivers craning forwards as they urged their horses flat out towards some agreed finishing line, perhaps a length of tape held by two youths. Within minutes the tape would have been snapped, the race decided, and the participants would vanish into side-streets to congratulate, argue or hand over winnings. By the time the police arrived there would be little evidence - perhaps the odd pile of horse droppings, a few cigarette ends - to suggest anything had happened there at all.
This, Ralph told her, was Maltese Sal's favoured racetrack. 'New Tarmac, innit?' He slid an appreciative boot over the smooth surface.
They had jumped from the back of the van and now stood below the flyover that led out to the industrial park, watching as money changed hands a few yards away. Tattooed men from mobile homes just visible beneath the pylons sat in the front of gleaming trucks with oversized wheels, mobile phones clamped to their ears, the ever-present cigarettes held between stubby, grimy fingers. They peeled notes from huge wads of cash, spitting into their palms as they shook hands, their cold, glinting eyes betraying the lack of trust and friendship in the gesture. The Maltese side, shorter, sleeker than the travellers, in scruffier vehicles but with immaculate clothes, were on one side of the road, the travellers on the other. Cowboy John leant against a van, puffing meditatively at a roll-up, pointing at the horses and chatting to someone in the passenger seat. A boy Sarah didn't recognise sat bareback on a black horse, legs thrust forward, guiding the animal in and out of the cars on a halter.
A short distance away, Maltese Sal checked the buckles on his horse's harness, chiding it when it fidgeted, a broad smile revealing one gold tooth, a cap rammed on his closely cropped head. He was laughing, berating his opponents' horse, mimicking the unfortunate angle of its legs, the supposed narrowness of its chest.
'They hate him,' Ralph observed, lighting another cigarette. 'He got caught with someone's missus last year. They've made it a seller.'
'A seller?'
Ralph looked at her as if she was stupid. 'If he loses he has to give up the mare.'
'Won't that make him mad?' she said.
Ralph spat on the floor. 'Nah. The Pikeys know all Sal's lot are mob-handed. And they're tooled up, just in case. But I reckon we'll stay on Vicente's truck - case we need to get away in a hurry.' He laughed. He always relished the prospect of trouble.
The men were climbing back into the trucks and Sarah shivered, unsure whether from nerves or excitement. Above them, supported by giant, rough-cast concrete pillars, traffic thundered on the flyover, the beginning of the rush-hour evident in the increasing density of vehicles.
Someone whistled, a dog barked, then Ralph was pulling her to the slip-road. Three trucks reversed, headed back the way they had come, in a pre-agreed formation. They disappeared, ready to join the traffic on the flyover, and then it was just the men standing on the slip-road, and the horses, steam blowing through their nostrils, their hooves picking daintily at the road surface, held firmly at the head by their handlers. Behind the grey mare, Sal crouched in his bright red sulky, legs braced, reins held loosely in one hand, glancing behind him repeatedly, waiting for the signal. His presence was magnetic. Sarah found herself watching him, his wide, confident grin, his eyes, which seemed to know everything. Ralph, beside her, lit another cigarette, muttering under his breath: 'Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes . . .'
All eyes were on the traffic on the flyover now. The men muttered to each other. Still the traffic came.
'I bet Donny's got pulled over. He's got no bloody car tax.' Someone laughed, breaking the tension.
And then there was a shout, and above them, just visible, one of the travellers' pick-ups, its hazard lights flashing through the safety barrier. 'Go!' someone shouted. 'G
o!' And, in one fluid movement, the two horses were on the slip-road, sulky wheels almost touching, their two drivers hunched forward, whips held high as they urged them along the emptied stretch of road.
'Go, Sal!' Ralph was yelling, his voice high with excitement. 'Go!' And Sarah felt him grab her sleeve, pulling her towards Vicente's pick-up, which was already revving, preparing to follow the racing horses already almost out of sight.
He shoved her aboard, and then she heard the horns of the stationary vehicles, the screech of rubber, her hands wrapped around the bars on the back windscreen, the wind in her ears.
'He's doing it!' Ralph was yelling! 'He's ahead!' And she saw the grey mare, her unnatural trot too fast, an unearthly pace. She could see the grimace of the traveller, his whip hand raised as he pushed his own horse faster, his expletive as it broke, briefly, into a canter, incurring a roar of protest from the Maltese.
'Go on, Sal! Muller him!'
Her heart was in her mouth, her eyes on the brave little mare whose every sinew strained with the effort of maintaining such a speed at the trot, her little hooves barely touching the road surface. Go on, she willed her, afraid that she would lose and be handed over to the travellers, lost for ever in some ragwort-strewn wasteland with the black-and-white cobs and broken supermarket trolleys. She felt a silent communion with the little horse, fighting for her own survival amid the shouting, the sweat and the noise. Go on.
And then, with a shout of victory, it was over, the horses off the flyover as swiftly as they had claimed it, the trucks peeling away behind them, the cars surging forward in bad-tempered confusion. And Vicente's truck was swerving left off the slip-road, Sarah's knees and arms bumping painfully against the truck's sides as they hit a pothole, her schoolbag open and her books, pages flapping, flying. She lifted her head and saw Sal, leaping from the sulky even as the little horse kept going, his hand high in triumph, a colleague greeting him with a high-five. She and Ralph were laughing, clutching each other, infected by the madness and by Sal's victory.