Wild Oats (22 page)

‘Are you coming with us?’ Olivier asked Jamie.

‘I think I’ll follow in my car. Have a leisurely
breakfast and not take my life into my hands,’ said Jamie, looking dubiously at the towbar.

A familiar fanfare heralded Lettice’s arrival. The Bentley bounced into the stable yard and out she popped, clearly as excited at the prospect of the day ahead as Jack and Olivier.

‘I’ve done us a picnic,’ she yodelled. ‘Man’s food – game pie, cold sausages and piccalilli. Plenty of protein to help you concentrate.’ She squeezed Olivier’s upper arm, then turned to Jamie. ‘You can come with me, darling. We’ll travel in style – not in that old bone-shaker.’

Jamie was about to protest. The last thing she wanted was to drive to Prescott with Lettice wittering in her ear. She wanted some time alone, to think. But she knew there was no point in refusing. Lettice wasn’t one to take no for an answer. And half an hour later, she was glad she had capitulated. The Bentley was incredibly comfortable, gliding smoothly through the Shropshire lanes and over the hills towards Hereford, then down towards Gloucestershire. As the day’s sun became gently warmer, Jamie found her eyes closing and consciousness gradually slipping away. She hadn’t slept well the night before – spreadsheets and business plans and proposals had been whirling round in her head, and she was determined to put them to the back of her mind. And in a strange way she was looking forward to today – the others’ excitement had been infectious, and she thought it would be churlish not to join in the fun.

*

Rod woke up with a heavy heart when the alarm went off, convinced he had only just dropped off to sleep. Bella bounced out of bed, seemingly refreshed and no longer under the cloud of last night’s fruitless encounter. Dressed in a baby-blue towelling tracksuit, smelling of zingy shower gel, she brought Rod a cup of tea and a toasted muffin in bed and was out of the house by half past eight – Saturday was her busiest day, with her first ballet class starting at nine.

Rod sipped his tea gloomily and decided to go into the workshop. It would take his mind off things, and he had some designs to finish off for a prospective client. He took the Audi, not caring if it elicited ridicule from his siblings. It was a beautiful day, and he whizzed through the lanes with the top down, trying hard to feel cheered by his surroundings.

By nine-thirty, he could barely see or breathe. Something blossomed at this time of year that made Rod’s nose stream and his eyes run incessantly. It made his life a misery; made work almost impossible. There was nothing for it but serious antihistamines: he phoned up the doctor to get a repeat prescription. They would make him dopey and drowsy, but at least he’d be able to see.

He drove to the surgery, this time with the roof up to shield himself from the pollen that was becoming more intense as the day became warmer. Inside, he joined the queue and was gratified to see that there were two other sufferers sniffing and dabbing their noses with their handkerchiefs. He wasn’t the only
one debilitated by the time of year. The receptionist riffled through the box and plucked out his prescription. Her coral-tipped nails hovered over the one behind his.

‘There’s one here for your wife as well. You might as well take it.’

She handed it over to him with a smile, not realizing that she was passing him an unexploded bomb.

He didn’t bother to look at Bella’s prescription until he joined the queue in the chemist. He was about to sign on the line, to say he was the patient’s representative, when he read ‘6 x Ovranette’. For a moment he didn’t register. He thought perhaps it was some exotic prenatal concoction containing vitamins and folic acid. Then the penny dropped. He knew the name rang a bell. He’d seen the pink boxes on her bedside table when they’d first got together.

The contraceptive pill. Six months’ worth of anti-baby tablets.

The hill-climb at Prescott, in its glorious Cotswold setting, was renowned as a testing course for even the most experienced drivers, and today’s historic meeting was an annual event that drew enthusiasts from far and wide. The sky was a dazzling Wedgwood blue with only the occasional fluffy cloud providing respite from the glorious sunshine. The track itself was only visible to the initiated, cutting a swathe through the verdant greenery on the hillside, a tortuous corkscrew
of tarmac that from a distance seemed benign, but was undeniably demanding.

Spectators and entrants alike gathered in an orchard at the foot of the hill. The competitors’ cars were lined up in neat rows, each with their own numbered space where they prepared their vehicles, refuelled and waited for their class to begin. The atmosphere, thought Jamie, was garden party meets
Wacky Races
. It was definitely a social occasion – most people seemed to know each other – but there was a buzz of excitement in the air that only the promise of competition can bring.

The cars, even to a girl whose only interest in vehicles was that they got her from A to B, were incredible – stylish, glamorous, sleek objects of beauty. And, Jamie had to admit, a lot of the drivers were worth admiring as well. A young woman in search of a husband could do worse than hang out here, she mused to herself. It undoubtedly wasn’t a poor man’s sport, though nobody was here to show off their wealth. It just went without saying. There was a good broad section of people: some inherited wealth, obviously, drivers whose cars had been handed down to them through the family. And a generous sprinkling of new money: it was an ideal sport for the entrepreneur looking for a novel way to spend his hard-earned cash and get his thrills. Then there were the enthusiasts, those who were simply mad about the sport, who probably worked hard in order to play hard, spent all their spare cash on their
hobby and no doubt went without holidays and other luxuries in order to pursue it.

She wasn’t quite sure which category Jack and Olivier fell into. Just plain obsessed, she thought. They were checking over the car meticulously now, making sure it hadn’t sustained any damage during the journey. Olivier was striding around masterfully in a pair of Jack’s faded and patched old overalls, oblivious to the admiring glances he was getting from the other drivers’ wives and girlfriends, rebuffing Lettice’s offers of refreshment, totally focussed on his task. Jamie smiled to herself, thinking that whoever ended up marrying Olivier would have to be an absolute paragon.

She decided to go off and explore her surroundings. The atmosphere was intoxicating, even for someone who wasn’t an enthusiast. The noise and the smell; the heat and the sense of expectation; the rivalry mixed with camaraderie – for this was a sport fuelled by passion, a passion which was often passed down through generations. She wandered through the paddock, admiring the different marques of car whose names conjured up another era: Bentley and Lagonda, Frazer Nash, Morgan, Riley. Each marque had its own following, with the owners believing their chosen vehicle had superiority over the rest, but it was a healthy competitiveness. Even the colours of the cars seemed exotic and enticing: British racing green, French blue, Bordeaux red, Royal ivory. And then there were the specials: the zany little cars that were
designed specifically to conquer the hill, as light and as powerful as possible, some of them looking straight out of
Mad Max
, with nicknames like The Hornet and The Wasp.

Another Bugatti, similar to Jack and Olivier’s, was parked up at the end of the paddock, and Jamie was interested to see a girl considerably younger than herself leaning against the bonnet. She was wearing regulation overalls, which highlighted the fact that her legs were enviably long. Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses. She looked like a model on a fashion shoot. But then she undid the leather strap on the bonnet of the car she was posing next to, lifting the flap to expose the engine underneath, and began to inspect the interior with something resembling expertise. Jamie watched, fascinated, as she actually got her hands dirty adjusting something, then wiped them on an oily bit of rag before closing up the engine again in apparent satisfaction. She really looked as if she knew what she was doing. A man – her father? – brought over a cup of coffee for her, and they had an animated conversation. Jamie was intrigued, and wondered what had attracted the girl to the sport. No doubt it was the perverse thrill of being female in what was undoubtedly a fairly male preserve. She ran her eye down the list of competitors in the programme, and decided by process of elimination that she must be Claudia Sedgeley.

*

Claudia was feeling most peculiar. She’d had the feeling before, when she’d raced at Donington Park in April. Then again at the vintage meeting at Silverstone. And it wasn’t the imminent hill-climb that was making her feel like this.

She remembered seeing Madonna interviewed once. She’d been asked how she’d felt when she’d first seen Guy Ritchie, and she said he made her insides feel squishy. At the time, Claudia hadn’t a clue what she meant. But the first time she saw Olivier Templeton standing by his car in the paddock, chatting to the scrutineer and running his hand absent-mindedly through his hair, Claudia’s insides had dissolved and at that moment she knew, absolutely, what Madonna had meant.

Until then, Claudia’s opinion of men had been that, on the whole, they weren’t worth bothering about. They were always trying to control her, clearly threatened by her independent spirit. It was so easy to wind them up and make them insecure, and the moment she sensed their anxiety she lost all respect. Didn’t they realize that to tame her they had to loosen the leash, not tighten it? The only person in the world who seemed to understand how she worked was her dad. And she certainly wasn’t looking for a replacement father figure. She didn’t need another Ray. She needed someone who excited her, intrigued her, and presented her with a challenge. Someone unpredictable. Perhaps a little bit dangerous.

Most of the men she’d been out with were older
than she was, because she had expensive tastes. And she liked to learn from their experience. A lot of them were successful entrepreneurs and businessmen who’d made their money on the back of Britain’s booming second city. They were men to whom appearance was everything. They dressed in tailored suits, teamed with slightly quirky shirts or ties or shoes to show their individuality. Claudia knew that she was just another accessory to most of them – a good-looking bird to go with the prestige motor and the penthouse. They took her out to the myriad restaurants that had opened up in Birmingham: once known only for its balti houses, it was now brimming with chic, modernist eateries where people went to see and be seen – Zinc, Denial, The Living Room, Mal Maison. While Claudia toyed with a Thai fish cake or monkfish tail, her suitors loved talking about themselves and what they’d done, and Claudia paid very close attention to the details, not remotely bored. It was, after all, far better to learn from other people’s mistakes than your own. Besides, young men of her own age bored her. They talked about football, then got drunk and wanted sex, at which they were usually pretty abysmal. The older men were a little bit wiser, and didn’t forget that they were more likely to get a repeat performance if they satisfied her as well as themselves. But so far, Claudia hadn’t met anyone that made her pulse race or her heart beat faster. They were all carbon copies of each other, with the same aspirations and the same insecurities. They might all
walk and talk tough but, underneath, their egos were pathetically fragile. It amused her to undermine them, to string them along then drop them like hot potatoes for no apparent reason.

But as soon as she’d clapped eyes on Olivier Templeton, she knew he was the one. The one she didn’t know how to handle. The one whose rulebook she couldn’t follow. She’d always known that the man for her would be a wild card, a renegade, a maverick, and Olivier was certainly that. She couldn’t pigeonhole him for the life of her. When she’d watched him from afar at the first meeting of the season, driving his Bugatti into the paddock, one hand on the wheel, his streaky blond locks tousled by the April breeze, she could easily have dismissed him as just another trust-fund poseur trashing expensive cars for thrills. But something about his lack of self-consciousness told her that here was something different.

Olivier intrigued her. He kept himself to himself, but he wasn’t aloof – he treated everyone, including her, with the same measured friendliness. She hadn’t yet been able to find a way of breaking down the barrier. Over the past few meetings, they had become natural rivals. Each new to the game, with the same make and model of car, it was inevitable that they would attract attention; that people would be watching with interest to see who would come out on top. Olivier had Jack Wilding’s technical expertise to back him up; Claudia had her father’s chequebook. They were each fearless drivers, and what they lacked in
experience they made up for in determination. And they were both hungry for glory. Claudia knew that speculation over who was going to claim the imminent Corrigan Trophy was rife, and had been in no doubt whatsoever that it should be her, no matter what it took. But all of a sudden, Claudia’s desire to win was being overridden by another, far more powerful urge.

From the moment she’d seen him arrive today, she hadn’t been able to concentrate. She was watching him now, from behind her reflective shades. He was bent over the bonnet of his car, occasionally brushing back the long fringe that fell into his eyes, stripped to the waist in the warmth of the midsummer sun. From her vantage point, she admired his physique, the sinuous muscle under his golden skin hard and toned. He was like a wild animal, naturally fit, his metabolism perfectly balanced – not so lean as to become scrawny, but certainly not carrying any excess. Just like herself, in fact. Claudia amused herself for a moment imagining what they would look like in bed together. A classical sculpture, the perfect contrast of hard and soft, sinew and muscle versus flesh and curves. She wondered for a moment where she might find a mirrored ceiling, then checked herself. She was going a bit too fast.