All The Nice Girls (14 page)

‘You must be Dagwood Jones,’ she said, categorically.

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m Hilda Judworth, how do you do? Come and meet everybody.’

Taking Dagwood by the arm in a proprietary grip, Hilda led him round. ‘This is Dagwood, everybody. Dagwood, this is Frieda . . . Colin . . . Freddie . . . Barbara and Tim . . . Cordelia .. .’

Dagwood nodded and smiled endlessly The men gave him a quick glance and then ignored him. But the girls looked at him interrogatively. This was a new face. Where had he sprung from? Dagwood could read their thoughts. Was this Hilda’s new one? If so, where did she get him? If not, whose is he? Is he married?

Dagwood took up his pint and assessed the company. It was just as he had expected. This was an agglomeration of first generation Young Farmers, Young Conservatives who were still unmarried, and alumni of the local Pony Clubs. Hilda seemed to have disappeared so Dagwood made desultory conversation about motor cars with a young man in a Paisley scarf and pimples called Digby, trod on the booted foot of a girl called Jacqueline, had half his beer knocked out of his glass by a young man named Jeremy and all at once everybody seemed to be finishing their drinks and pushing outside.

‘Oh, have you got a Land Rover?’ everybody asked, in surprised voices, as though it were the first reasonable thing they had yet heard about Dagwood. ‘We’ll come with you then.’

The back of Bill’s Land Rover filled up with a further assortment of Paisley scarves, sheepskin jackets and Newmarket boots, none of whom Dagwood recognised. Hilda reappeared again and filled the front seat next to Dagwood.

‘Where do we go now?’

‘I’ll show you,’ said Hilda. ‘Straight on over the bridge.’

‘Is Sarah riding today, Hilda?’ someone asked from the back of the Land Rover.

‘Yes, she’s riding Hurrymint.’

‘
Oh
,’ said someone, sounding impressed.

‘Who’s Sarah?’ Dagwood enquired.

‘My sister.’

‘Is it true that Major O’Reilly’s asked Fulke to ride Nautical Laddie today, Hilda?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh,’ said someone, sounding even more impressed.

‘Who’s Fulke?’ Dagwood enquired.

‘My brother.’

‘Quite a hard-riding family you seem to have,’ Dagwood remarked. ‘Do you live on a ranch or something?’

Someone in the back tittered. Hilda frowned. ‘Only Sarah and Fulke ride.’

‘And what do you do?’

‘I play lacrosse.’

Dagwood sighed very faintly. That figured.

‘Left at this fork,’ said Hilda. ‘Fulke is the best. He does quite a lot of National Hunt riding. He rode a winner at Market Rasen last week. You might have heard of him.’ Dagwood shook his head. ‘Can’t say I have. I never look at the jockeys, only at the starting prices.’

‘He’s hoping to get a ride in the National next year. This year, if he can manage it.’

‘Sooner him than me,’ said Dagwood cheerfully.

‘It’s a great
honour
to ride in the National,’ said a girl’s voice from the back.

‘Oh I’m sure it is,’ Dagwood replied. ‘All I’m saying is that I
personally
don’t fancy going base over apex on a six foot hunk of hedge and having about three tons of horse land in the small of me back.’

After which piece of descriptive narrative, of which the immortal John Jorrocks himself might not have been ashamed, Dagwood drove on in silence. The others talked amongst themselves, sensing that they had in their midst a Philistine, one of the uncircumcised. As he drove, Dagwood thought of George Bernard Shaw, who always maintained that you could go anywhere in England, where there were natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what did you always find? That the stables were the real centre of the household. Dagwood was suddenly irritated by it all. Dammit, horses were things you put money on. From bad, Dagwood plunged determinedly to worse.

‘Will everyone be wearing their red coats today?’ he asked, deliberately.

Hilda looked at Dagwood with the expression of a wholesome human mother who discovers that her child is a demon changeling. Her protégé was certainly distinguishing himself. Worst of all, every girl in the Land Rover must by now have realised that never, never in a thousand years, could Dagwood be any boy-friend of Hilda’s. The back of the Land Rover began to hum with quickening feminine interest. Hilda noticed it.

‘I expect the hunt servants will be wearing pink,’ she said, with the kindest smile she could manufacture.

‘Oh how lovely,’ said Dagwood maliciously. ‘And will all the
dogs
be there too?’

No more was said until they arrived at the scene of the point-to-point where, directed by Hilda and speeded by the green label she had stuck on the windscreen, Dagwood drove to a vantage point on the course immediately by the last fence. Dagwood wondered at their pride of place until he got out and, looking round him, saw that by borrowing the Land Rover he had brought off a coup which was nothing short of a master-stroke. There was only one fashionable vehicle for point-to-points. A man could glide up soundlessly in the gleaming product of generations of craftsmen or he could arrive strapped into the spitting snarling result of three decades of Grand Prix racing, but at any social event involving horses he would have to give precedence to the gentleman in the Land Rover.

Everybody drifted off, leaving Dagwood with one girl by herself. She was very bronzed and her left leg was enclosed in plaster.

‘I’ve no doubt Hilda introduced us,’ Dagwood said, ‘but I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

‘I’m Fiona,’ said the girl.

‘Well, I’m Dagwood.’

‘Oh I know
that!
You know, you’re really rather a nasty piece of work, Dagwood.’

‘Why?’ said Dagwood, rather pleased.

‘It wasn’t fair to pull Hilda’s leg like that. She’s a very nice girl and a friend of mine. She’s a very kind person, you know.’

‘I’m sure she is,’ said Dagwood, repentantly. ‘I just felt bolshie all of a sudden. How did you do your leg?’

‘Skiing, of course.’

‘That’s why you’re so sun-burned.’

‘I only got back a week ago.’

‘I see everybody’s signed their names on your leg. Can I sign mine?’

‘
Lunch
,’ said Hilda, from the other side of the Land Rover.

It was a very good lunch. They had legs of chicken, sticks of celery, cold sausage, with German mustard out of a tube, hard-boiled eggs, thermos flasks of hot tomato soup, bottles of white wine, and coffee. Standing round the Land Rover or sitting on rugs on the bonnet, they ate lunch and watched the most important part of a point-to-point meeting - the parade.

Like the Mediterranean evening stroll along the main streets, the point-to-point parade was a chance to meet one’s friends, exchange gossip, and generally look and see who was there, and with whom. Hilda and Fiona pointed out the local celebrities for Dagwood and made sure he was up to date with the latest scandal.

‘Puffing Billy looks a bit mad,’ said Hilda.

‘Who’s he?’

‘The Lord Lieutenant.’

‘I expect his woman in London is playing him up,’ said Fiona.

‘Has he got a woman in London?’

‘Lord yes, had her for years. He says he’s going down to London on business but everyone knows he only goes to the Edgware Road.’

‘That’s a fair stretch of road,’ said Dagwood. ‘Any idea how far along it he goes?’

‘No idea.’

Dagwood caught sight of Patricia MacGregor amongst the crowd.

‘There’s Frigid Bridget,’ said Hilda. ‘Did you know she once had the most
violent
love affair with one of the barmen at the ‘Three Feathers’? He was Irish and he had a wife and eight children back in Connemara.’

So the iceberg had been known to melt. Dagwood mentally doffed his cap to the unknown Irishman; he must have possessed rare qualities of charm and persuasion.

‘Oh, there’s Major O’Reilly. He
is
a doll. That’s his third wife, you know.’

‘Really? What happened to the other two?’

‘He divorced them. But they’re all the best of friends. They’re all here today.’

‘Isn’t that a bit embarrassing?’

‘Not for the Reilly. He would be hurt if they didn’t turn up. Oh do look, there’s Sexy Frankie!’

‘Ooh where?’ said Fiona.

‘Outside the yeomanry tent.’

‘Who’s that with him?’

‘His mistress, Her name’s Maxine. She’s rather glam, isn’t she?’

By standing on tiptoe and stretching his neck Dagwood could just see a man in a Cheviot tweed suit quaffing a glass of beer outside the yeomanry tent. Beside him Dagwood could also see a tall auburn-haired girl in a light tweed costume. She was, as Hilda had intimated, rather glamorous. Dagwood relapsed on to his heels again, feeling well rewarded by this gossip. For the first time he was seeing Mr Frank Tybalt, Admiralty Constructor Overseer for Messrs. Harvey McNichol & Drummond (S.&E.) Ltd., in a new light.

‘There’s that new Admiralty man,’ said Hilda.

‘He’s rather handsome,’ said Fiona, ‘in a battered-looking sort of way.’

‘Where?’ asked Dagwood.

‘Just walking past the bookmakers.’

The Bodger was making his way along the line of bookmakers, examining their boards closely as he went along. He was accompanied by, in Dagwood’s opinion, the two best- looking girls at the point-to-point meeting. One, Dagwood knew, was The Bodger’s wife Julia. The other was the girl he had knocked down outside Harvey McNichol & Drummond’s offices.

‘That must be his wife,’ said Hilda.

‘Who’s the other girl?’ Dagwood asked, casually.

‘Oh that’s Caroline Hennessy-Gilbert.’

Caroline. So that was her name.

It was now almost time for the first race. The race card listed twenty runners but only seven horses were parading, rather self-consciously, in the paddock. Dagwood went over to look at the odds. Six of the seven horses were offered at odds ranging from 5-1 to 20-1. The seventh, a strapping bay gelding with black points, called The Whopper, was at even money. Dagwood was standing in front of the board of a Mr Joe Calvin, of Yeovil who, according to his sign, was THE BIGGEST (hearted) BOOKMAKER IN THE WORLD, when he heard The Bodger’s voice.

‘Hello, young Dagwood.’

‘Hello, sir.’ Dagwood was disappointed to see that The Bodger was alone; he must have left the women behind while he went to put some money on for them.

‘Made up your mind yet?’

‘No sir.’

‘Let me give you some advice then. Always back the favourite at point-to-points. Those bookies didn’t come down in the last shower of rain, y’know.’

‘It’s only even money, sir. I think I’ll have something on Maybe Haiti. Eight to one is more like it.’

‘All right, it’s your money.’

Dagwood put his modest five shillings in the keeping of Joe Calvin and went back to the others. The start was some way down the course from where the Land Rover was parked and a thin mist made the horses difficult to distinguish, but when Dagwood saw the flag drop, heard the huntsman’s horn, and saw the horses spurting into action he knew immediately that the old familiar magic was returning. As always, the sight of horses at a hard gallop brought a lump to Dagwood’s throat; whatever he may have said to Hilda, Dagwood’s blood always raced when he saw the horses coming. At heart, he knew himself to be an addict.

The seven horses took the first fence in a ragged line. Dagwood heard the crash and rattle as they cleared the fence and watched them thud past him, rise in a flowing curve at the next fence, and gallop out of sight round the bend in the mist. Dagwood blinked, and became aware that his heart had been thumping.

‘You’re not so blasé about this as you make out, Dagwood,’ said Fiona, who had been watching his face.

‘Ah, it’s always a splendid sight, especially the first race of the season.’

‘I didn’t think much of the jockey on your selection, though. The boy in the red hoops. Looked as if he was going to come off any minute.’

A tweedy couple, who had been leaning on their shooting sticks nearby, reared as though Fiona had spurred them. The gentleman blew down a large purple nose while the lady gave Fiona a look which would have the Medusa herself run to her mirror for reassurance.

‘
Fiona!
’ hissed Hilda. ‘That was Colonel Sir Eric Glossop and Lady Glossop. That jockey you were talking about was Roger Glossop!’

Fiona was aghast. ‘Was it really?’ she said, her hand to her mouth.

‘You’re as tactless as I am, Fiona,’ said Dagwood, happily. He remembered some more of The Bodger’s advice. ‘You must never, never pass loud remarks about a rider at a point-to-point meeting or at show jumping; his mum and dad are sure to be standing right in front of you.’

Fiona blushed. ‘Oh, I should have recognised them.’

Only one horse appeared out of the murk after the second circuit of the course. Dagwood noted that it was The Whopper, being ridden at an easy canter, his jockey looking casually over his shoulder for signs of non-existent danger. As Fiona had prophesied, Maybe Haiti and Roger Glossop had gone the parting of the ways long since.

‘Well, that’s that,’ said Dagwood, philosophically.

‘There’s my godmother,’ said Hilda.

‘Hilda, my
darling
, how are you?’

Dagwood had seen a good number of large women that day but The Hon. Mrs Julian Dewberry outstripped them all. Dagwood estimated that she stood six feet in her furry boots which trod the sod as though they owned it. Her hair was a spreading aureole of tightly-rolled grey curls on which rode a minute red lady’s Tyrolean hat. Her heavy dark moleskin coat swung from her shoulders like a medieval tabard and the knees Dagwood could see beneath the hairy McCorquodale tartan skirt would have done credit to a Roman legionary. Her shooting stick, which she handled like a toothpick, was beribboned with innumerable badges for agricultural shows and race meetings. Her face was tanned a deep ruddy apple colour and her sharp blue eyes raked Dagwood searchingly over her god-daughter’s shoulder.

‘And who’s this?’ demanded The Hon. Mrs Julian Dewberry. ‘We haven’t met.’

‘This is Lieutenant Dagwood Jones,’ Hilda explained. ‘He’s in the Navy.’