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Etta’s heart sank. She also felt honour bound to pay back Woody, Joey, Jase and Charlie Radcliffe for their endless free help, and what about Rupert?

Reading her thoughts, Martin returned to the attack:

‘Rupert can only have bankrolled your court case because he’s expecting you to sell Mrs Wilkinson to him.’

‘What about Chisolm?’ quavered Etta.

‘Oh, she’d lead a far more worthwhile life sustaining a family in Africa,’ said Romy. ‘Shoo, shoo, out of here.’

In answer, Chisolm raised a cloven hoof and scattered currants over the kitchen floor.

After they’d gone, a despairing Etta rang Alan, who suggested she leased Mrs Wilkinson to a syndicate. ‘They’d pay her training fees and insurance and share out any winnings.’

But if Martin and Carrie stopped her tiny allowance, she’d have only her state pension to live on and couldn’t pay anyone back.

It was a stiflingly hot evening. She could hear the roar of Farmer Fred’s tedder as he tossed and turned the newly cut hay, baling it into shining silver cotton reels. The shaven fields gleamed like a platinum blonde in a nightclub, the air was heavy with the voluptuous scent of honeysuckle, elder and wild rose. Such a night to be in love, thought Etta, but not with a horse that was going to be taken away.

She sought comfort in the orchard, where Chisolm and Mrs Wilkinson ransacked her pockets for Polos. She must find a way to keep them. As her eyes strayed to the dark house nearby, still spiky with scaffolding, her thoughts turned to Valent. She put her hand on the shoulder he had touched in court, pressing her cheek against the hand, feeling weak with longing for him to take care of her, Wilkie and Chisolm.

But he had Bonny Richards and had done enough. To comfort
her mistress, Mrs Wilkinson hooked her head over Etta’s shoulder and drew her against her warm grey breastbone.

‘Something will turn up.’

After a sleepless night, when she had tossed like Farmer Fred’s hay, Etta was interrupted at seven thirty in the morning by a call from Alan.

‘Let’s have a meeting in the Fox to see if the village is prepared to form a syndicate.’

‘Might they?’

‘We can only try. I’ll get on the telephone.’

To Etta’s amazement, twelve hours later she was in the garden of the Fox, breathing in a heady scent of pink rambler roses and damp earth from a recent shower. With a large jug of pre-ordered Pimm’s, she filled up the glasses of the Major, Debbie, Pocock, Painswick, Alban, Jase, Joey, Woody, very brown from working stripped to the waist at Badger’s Court, Shagger, Tilda, Dora, Trixie, who’d bunked off from school and was keeping shtum because she didn’t want her father to see her new tongue stud, Niall the vicar, and Chris and Chrissie, who’d left Jenny the barmaid manning the shop because most of the drinkers were in the garden. Araminta and Cadbury panted under the walnut tree.

Etta had bought the first round. She wanted to, and Alan had suggested it was a good idea to look rich.

He was just kicking off, asking everyone to drink a toast to Etta winning the court case, when Phoebe and Toby, who were gripped with pre-Wimbledon fervour, scuttled in in tennis gear.

‘Sorry sorry sorry, just been finishing a needle match,’ cried Phoebe. ‘Ooh, Pimm’s, how refreshing, yes please, just what we need.’

Alan, whose irritation was only betrayed by a hiss through the teeth and drumming fingers on the table, waited until they were sorted and seated to announce: ‘Etta and I have invited you here this evening to discuss the possibility of forming a syndicate to put Mrs Wilkinson into training.’

He looked round the garden at his daughter texting, at Tilda marking SATS papers, at Phoebe whispering to Shagger, at Dora beaming in approval.

‘What we need,’ he continued, ‘is ten people each to take a
three thousand pound share. That’s assuming Mrs Wilkinson is worth thirty thousand – in fact she’s worth a great deal more, bearing in mind her pedigree and her astonishing performance at the point-to-point, so you’d be getting a fantastic bargain. But we want to make this not beyond people’s pockets, so we can keep Mrs Wilkinson in Willowwood.’

At the prospect of forking out so much, everyone was doing sums. Alban, who’d been in the pub since six, was confidently looking forward to confirmation of a £250,000-a-year role heading a quango. Debbie was wondering whether having the most colourful garden in Willowwood was quite enough. She and the Major had enjoyed the court case and the point-to-point so much, it had given them something to talk about at mealtimes. Tilda yawned. She’d been up at six that morning, making up beds for Shagger’s holiday lets. She couldn’t afford to join the syndicate, but she was depressed by the SATS Level 4 essays she was marking. They were so colourless, dull and unimaginative, from children stuck behind computers all day, when there was so much beauty in the world. People needed adventure.

Chris and Chrissie had just discovered their latest stab at IVF hadn’t worked. Chris felt his wife needed cheering out of her despair … Joey, Jase and Woody had been in at the start and loved Mrs Wilkinson. Niall loved Woody and would seize any opportunity to be near him.

‘As well as the initial three thousand,’ explained Alan blithely, ‘we’d each have to put in a hundred and eighty-five pounds a month. That’s to pay twenty-two thousand a year to a trainer for the gallops, feed, vets, entries, jockeys and transport.’

‘Same as Bagley school fees,’ volunteered Trixie.

‘If I take care of the insurance,’ asked Shagger, refilling his and Toby’s glasses from Etta’s Pimm’s jug, ‘can I have my share free?’

‘I have to be straight with you,’ said Alan, ignoring him. ‘Eighty per cent of owners never have a win.’ Then, looking around: ‘But if we do win, the jockey gets 10 per cent of the winnings, the trainer 10 per cent, and the owners a socking great 80 per cent. We won’t make a fortune, but as we take off to race meetings round the country, we’ll have one hell of a ball.’ The scent from the garden was getting stronger as a gold full moon with a halo rose out of the trees to watch the fun.

‘Also you don’t all have to have an equal share,’ Alan rallied the doubters. ‘If you feel three thousand is too much, you can split it between two or three.’

Gathering up a second jug waiting on a side table, smiling shyly, Etta began to fill up everyone’s glasses.

If I joined this syndicate, thought Alban, the Major and Pocock, I could get closer to this sweet woman.

There was a long pause and even longer faces as everyone redid the sums and decided it was one hell of a commitment. They could hear the roar of Farmer Fred’s combines and the pat of tennis balls. Then Miss Painswick put down her knitting and announced that ‘Bagley Hall gave me a good pension. I’ve got a few savings. I’m very attached to Mrs Wilkinson and I’d like to be part of her future.’

‘Oh Joyce.’ Etta grabbed her hand.

‘Oh well done, Miss Painswick,’ said Dora, ‘Hengist would be proud of you. I’d like to have a share but I’m not sure I can afford a hundred and eighty-five pounds. I’ve got “A” Levels next year, so I won’t have time to flog so many stories.’

‘I’ll take a half-share with you, Dora,’ said Trixie, stopping texting in her excitement.

‘With what?’ demanded Alan.

‘You’ll help me, Dad. You won’t have to pay school fees any more if I go to Larkminster High.’

Pocock, who would soon be working extra time for Corinna and Seth, then said he’d take a half-share with Miss Painswick.

‘Good for you, we’ll chip in too,’ said Chris. A horse would take Chrissie’s mind off the baby. ‘We can’t sell Mrs Wilkinson to some ’orrible owner who might not cherish her. She belongs to Willowwood.’

Jase, Woody and Joey, though they were committed to Not for Crowe and Family Dog, agreed to take a fourth share.

‘Just over sixty pounds a monf,’ said Joey, who was yet to tell Mop Idol about a third horse he’d bought with his point-to-point winnings.

Debbie glanced at the Major, who polished his spectacles and nodded.

‘Father and I have always wanted a Mercedes when we retired,’ said Debbie, ‘but we’d rather have a racehorse!’

‘Oh, come on, Toby. We’re both working, and if the Cunliffes are joining …’ pleaded Phoebe. Then, turning to Alban: ‘And you come in too, Uncle Alban. And you and Tilda could take a share, Shagger.’

‘I suppose we could manage it,’ said Tilda, hiding her blushing face in another turgid essay. Anything to provide an ongoing link with Shagger. She’d just have to take on more coaching.

‘Even with Etta, that’s only nine shares,’ said Shagger crushingly. ‘We haven’t got enough people.’

‘Yes, you have,’ said a deep, husky voice and in walked a tall,
dark, very suntanned man in a black shirt and jeans, who was followed by an equally beautiful sleek black greyhound. As everyone surged forward to kiss him or shake his hand, except Phoebe, who scuttled off to the Ladies to take the shine off her flushed post-tennis face, Etta realized it was Seth Bainton.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked an utterly delighted Alan.

‘I’m back in England for a good nine months,’ said Seth. ‘We’re doing a BBC film of
The Seagull
and after that Corinna is off to the States in a tour of
Macbeth
. And next year there’s talk of
Antony and Cleopatra
at Stratford.’ Then, breaking away from his well-wishers, Seth added, ‘And you must be Etta Bancroft. Alan told me how pretty you were and about the syndicate. I’m desperate to have a share in Mrs Wilkinson, such a sweet horse. I love her big white face, looks as though they ran out of grey paint.’

And Etta melted because he was absolutely gorgeous.

‘She must run a lot at Stratford so I can nip out of rehearsals and cheer her on,’ he added, taking Etta’s hands. ‘And lots of Sundays as that’s my day off.’

‘That’s one day the vicar can’t do,’ giggled Trixie.

Within five minutes, such was Seth’s exuberance and charm, they’d agreed to form a syndicate.

These are my friends, thought Etta joyfully. If they have shares in Mrs Wilkinson, nothing can go far wrong.

‘What a heavenly dog,’ she said, patting the black greyhound’s sleek body, which was even more toned and muscular than his master’s. The dog proceeded to look down his long nose at Araminta and Cadbury, rotate his tail and stand on his toes, before crossing the garden and leaping on to the bench seat with the most cushions.

‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

‘Priceless, in all senses of the word,’ said Seth. ‘This calls for another drink.’

‘Several drinks,’ said Alan. ‘We must decide on a trainer.’

‘Let’s go for Marius,’ suggested Seth. ‘He’s so near and Olivia’s so sweet. Harvey-Holden’s a no-go after that horrendous court case. Isa Lovell’s broken away from Rupert and only just started up on his own, and he’s a tricky bugger.’

‘We ought to ask Rupert,’ protested Etta. ‘He did lend me his lawyer for the court case.’

‘He’s too big and too opinionated,’ said Seth, who didn’t like competition. ‘Meanwhile Dermie O’Driscoll’s too far away. Robbie Crowborough’s bent. Corinna’s nephew paid thirty-five thousand for a horse that Robbie claimed had never been
beaten. In fact it had never actually raced, just stayed in a field so it developed laminitis then broke down.’

‘We won’t go to Robbie,’ interrupted Alan, seeing alarm on people’s faces. ‘Let’s check out Marius.’

‘Who will approach him?’ asked Major Cunliffe, who’d had several up-and-downers with him over speeding racehorses.

‘I will if you like,’ said Alban, feeling a surge of authority. ‘Known him since he was a boy. Now what would everyone like to drink?’

‘This calls for champagne,’ said Seth.

‘I do hope Marius will allow us to see lots of Mrs Wilkinson,’ said a suddenly worried Etta.

‘You can always wave across the valley at her,’ suggested Woody.

How sweet he is, thought Niall, then out loud, ‘I’m afraid I can’t run to a share in Mrs Wilkinson – yes, I’d love a glass of fizz please, Seth – but I hope when she goes racing I can pray for her success and safe return.’

‘Bless this horse,’ grinned Seth.

He had such merry dark eyes and a wonderful laugh, decided Etta, which immediately made people feel better. She was horrified to find herself thinking what fun he’d be in bed.

‘Will Marius let us drop in?’ she asked.

‘Well, he is rather anti-visitor,’ admitted Alan, ‘but Olivia will be very accommodating, she’s so easy-going.’

‘Pity Wilkie can’t be a weekly boarder,’ said Trixie.

‘Cheer up, darling,’ whispered Alan. ‘You’ve just made twenty-seven thousand. Nine shares at three thousand pounds each in Mrs Wilkinson. Thirty thousand minus your three thousand share.’

Etta clapped her hands for quiet.

‘I can’t thank you all enough for helping me,’ her voice trembled, ‘but if Mrs Wilkinson retires from racing, would it be OK for me to try and buy her back?’

Later, Alban insisted very unsteadily on walking Etta home through the gloaming to her bungalow, commenting on the frightful mess Valent’s builders were making at Badger’s Court.

‘Can’t leave well alone.’

‘He’s been angelic to Mrs Wilkinson,’ protested Etta.