She nodded, grinning. The last time we had been there, a year and a half before, had marked the transition of our status from friends to lovers. Of course she remembered.
‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ she said, and gave me a quick kiss.
Karen was tired, and we went to bed. She was in good spirits, I could hear her humming in the bathroom. But when we were in bed, and I rolled next to her to stroke her thigh, she kissed me lightly on the nose and said, ‘Not now, Mark. I really am tired.’
I lay there, watching her fall asleep, a small smile on her face.
The insistent beep of the telephone woke me. I looked at my alarm clock. Quarter to twelve. Who would ring me at quarter to twelve?
I picked up the receiver. It was Richard.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you so late,’ he began.
‘That’s OK,’ I said, pulling myself up on to my elbow.
Silence for a moment. I waited to see what he wanted. ‘Richard?’
‘Look, Mark, would you mind coming up to Scotland this weekend? There’s something I need to talk to you about.’
‘Oh, um,’ I played for time. Scotland was a long way to go just for a chat. ‘Can’t we talk about whatever it is over the phone?’
‘No. I’d rather talk face to face. It’s quite difficult. Well, very difficult actually.’
It must have been for Richard to want to ring me. He had dealt with all kinds of stress in his brief career as an entrepreneur, and apart from the cash-flow problem last year, he had never needed me to help him out.
I thought about airports and shuttles. Then I remembered the Café du Marché. And Ascot. I could just make it on Saturday night after the last race.
‘Will Saturday night do?’
‘Can’t you make it Friday?’
I thought about cancelling my date with Karen. But, after all, it was her birthday. It was important to her, to us. I didn’t want to cancel. And I remembered what Richard had said about her the last time I had seen him.
‘No, it’ll have to be Saturday evening.’
‘OK, that‘s fine,’ he said, but he sounded disappointed. ‘Get the eight o’clock shuttle, and I’ll meet you at Edinburgh airport.’
‘All right. See you then.’ I put the phone down.
Karen stirred next to me. ‘Who was that?’
‘Richard,’ I said. ‘He wants to see me this weekend.’
Karen sat up, wide awake. ‘What about?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But he sounded worried.’
‘Are you going?’
‘Not on Friday,’ I said, touching her cheek. ‘But I will go up on Saturday, after Ascot.’
‘Thank you,’ said Karen, giving me a quick kiss. ‘I wonder what it is. Wouldn’t he say over the phone?’
‘No.’
‘Sometimes your brother is too mysterious for his own good.’
I lay awake for at least an hour, thinking. Karen lay motionless opposite me. I was pretty sure she was awake also. I don’t know which one of us fell asleep first.
We agreed to meet at the restaurant. The Café du Marché is in Charterhouse Square near Smithfield Market. It’s not too far from Harrison Brothers’ offices, which is why I had suggested it a year before. It’s a converted warehouse, all light woods and black-painted wrought iron. It has none of the expense-account heaviness of plush City restaurants, but the food is nevertheless excellent. It had been a good choice.
Karen was coming straight from work. She often worked late; the problem with covering the American equity markets was that she had to hang around in case any of her keener European customers wanted to deal while the New York Stock Exchange was still open.
She arrived half an hour late. She was wearing a thin black Armani suit with a short skirt. Actually, the suit wasn’t Armani, it was made by a tailor in Hong Kong she had found on a trip there three years before, but I was the only person who was supposed to know that. She looked good, and she knew it as she weaved towards me, between the small white-clothed tables, followed by the eyes of all of the men and most of the women in the room.
She smiled when she saw me, and gave me a quick kiss.
‘Sorry I’m late. Martin was faffing about trying to decide whether or not to buy some Disney. In the end he couldn’t get his act together, and just went home.’
‘Does he ever do any trades?’
‘Eventually. But you have to be patient.’ She reached across the table and touched my hand. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been working so hard recently. But with these reorganisation rumours I’ve got to put the effort in. And they want me to spend more time on the road.’
‘Really? Have you got any more trips coming up?’
‘Yes. Holland next week. And I’ll have to go to Paris again in a couple of weeks’ time.’
I was disappointed. I knew there was nothing she could do if her bosses and clients demanded it. I was usually disciplined about leaving my positions at six in the evening, and I suppose I expected other people to be the same.
Karen saw my disappointment. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
We ordered a couple of kirs. ‘I went shoe shopping with Sally at lunchtime. She was pretty depressed.’
‘Did it work?’ I asked. Buying shoes was what Karen did when she was miserable. She had dozens at home, many of them bought the previous year. She hadn’t bought any for several months, I was glad to see.
‘I don’t know. I think I cheered her up a bit. Jack Tenko has really got to her.’
‘Poor woman. It’s vital to get a good boss, isn’t it? Especially when you’re starting out.’
‘That’s true.’ Karen grinned. ‘Apparently Ed is full of praises for you.’
I shrugged. ‘These young guys are so impressionable,’ I said. But I was pleased to hear it.
‘So, how was your day?’ she asked.
‘Not bad. Some of those trades I put on last week are really starting to come right. But I’m probably still one and a half million down on the month, and there’s only one week to go.’ I hated ending the month down, especially by such a large amount, but it looked inevitable this time.
‘Bad luck. Even you can’t have a good month every time.’ She paused to order.
When we had both chosen, she took a sip of her kir. ‘What do you think Richard wants to talk to you about?’
‘I’ve no idea. It must be something pretty important for him to want me to go all the way up there at such short notice.’ I was struck by a thought. ‘I bet FairSystems has run out of cash already!’
‘No!’ said Karen. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘Could be. I’m just not sure he has a good handle on the finances of that place. Well, the stupid bastard should sell out. And I’ll tell him that.’
‘Yes, do,’ said Karen. ‘It would be a shame to lose everything after coming so far.’
‘It might have something to do with the fall in the share price I suppose. Did you pick up anything in the market?’
‘Nothing,’ said Karen. ‘It’s a tiny little company. Most people haven’t heard of it, let alone bought shares in it. Wagner Phillips has locked up all the trading in its stock. I called a friend there, but he didn’t know anything other than that the price was falling steadily.’
‘Yeah, I think Richard’s imagining things,’ I said. ‘He can analyse anything to death. And even if the share price was being manipulated, I don’t see what the urgency would be.’ I sighed. ‘No, I’m afraid it’s bankruptcy.’
The meal came. It was good. I ordered an expensive bottle of wine, and raised my glass. ‘Happy birthday!’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thirty.’ She shuddered. ‘I’m not sure I want to be thirty.’
I kept quiet. I had been careful not to mention which birthday it was.
Karen sipped the wine. ‘Mm. This is good.’
‘When are you going to see your mother?’
‘Not till tomorrow evening. My second birthday dinner. It always seems strange, just me and her.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t come. I really do have to see Richard.’
‘No, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s much better if you don’t. You’ll only rub each other up the wrong way.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘It just seems odd that’s all.’
‘Without your father?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was suddenly strained.
We both came from families that had split up, and it was a sore subject for each of us. For that reason, we didn’t often compare notes, but I had an urge to now.
‘Have you ever tried to see him?’
‘I don’t know where he is. I think mother knows, but she won’t tell me.’
‘Won’t tell you?’
‘That’s right.’ Suddenly, I noticed tears forming in her eyes. ‘Of course she denies it. She says he disappeared without trace.’
‘But you don’t believe her?’
‘You know mother,’ she said contemptuously. ‘She’s protecting me. I’m sure of it.’
We ate in silence. Karen sniffed, and somehow managed to blink back her tears. But as she did so her mood changed for the worse. She tensed as she tackled her duck. I had seen this before. I wished I had never brought the subject up. I had been right to avoid it.
‘I loved him,’ said Karen suddenly. She had controlled her tears, but her voice was low and husky, as though she was holding back something. Sorrow, or anger, or both. ‘He was everything to me. Every evening, I couldn’t wait till he came home so I could play with him. Even when I was twelve, I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. I remember once he took me to the office party as his date. I was so proud of him. He was so proud of me. I couldn’t believe it when he left me. How could he leave me, Mark? How could he?’
For a second, her eyes looked up at me, tormented, angry, searching for something. It was something I couldn’t give her, because they swiftly broke away from mine, and stared darkly into her plate, her face as still as stone. She sat there, rocking backwards and forwards slowly, coiled tight. She made no effort to touch her food. Something was churning deep within her body. It was as though there was a wild, terrible scream bottled up inside, ready to burst out at any moment, releasing all that pain and anger. I had seen her like this before, just after she had been ditched by that man, and it was frightening.
When she was a girl, after her father had left her mother, Karen had been to see a string of psychiatrists. I wasn’t sure what they had found, or even if they had been any help; Karen had never given me details, and I had never asked. Then, after she’d been dumped, she’d seemed to me to be on the verge of a breakdown, and I’d suggested she talk to someone again. In the end that someone had been me, and eventually she’d pulled herself back together. I was proud of that, but now I wondered if talking to me had been enough. Seeing her old lover the other day, and talking about her father now, we seemed to be going back to where we had started.
I sat there, silently watching her, praying for the tension to leave her. After five minutes she slowly began to relax. She turned to me. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Will you be all right?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
But we ate the rest of the meal in silence, paid the bill and went home.
I sipped the glass of champagne and settled back in my seat. The clouds were breaking up, and I could see the lights of Sheffield far below. Even though the afternoon had been cold and wet, I had that warm inner glow that comes from a really good win.
I had picked up Greg that morning from his flat in Kensington Church Street. It was his first time on a racecourse, and he was intrigued, as much by what interested me in it as anything else. We got to the course in time for lunch, and I took him through the form card. All my attention was on the third race, and a six-year-old hurdler called Busker’s Boy. I had seen him race at Fontwell Park in March. He had run a very promising race over two miles, coming fourth only four lengths behind the winner. It had been his first time out after a long absence and his jockey had been remarkably easy on him; he’d had plenty of puff left at the end.
I was looking forward to seeing him run today; his sire, Deep Run, had been excellent on soft ground, and a new young jockey called A. P. McCoy, who seemed to be winning a few races, was riding him. So, I took ten twenty-pound notes and split them between a couple of bookies at the far end of the Tattersalls enclosure. I managed to get 8–1 odds, when the betting finished at 7–1. I always enjoyed that. Greg missed the 8–1, and tried to haggle with a bookie to improve on his 7–1. No chance, so Greg didn’t place a bet on principle.
The race was over two and a half miles, and Busker’s Boy moved easily over the first mile and a half. With three-quarters of a mile to go he pulled effortlessly away from the field. My heart almost stopped as his jockey slipped over his right shoulder at the last flight, but he scrambled back and horse and rider passed the winning post together, way ahead of anyone else.
I had reinvested three hundred pounds of my winnings in Britain’s bookmaking industry, but I had enjoyed losing it, and I still came out well ahead. I left the course comforted by the firm pressure of the wad of notes stuffed in my hip pocket.
Greg was furious. Having seen me win so much, he had sprayed around twenty-pound notes with abandon, with no success. He ended up two hundred pounds poorer.
‘Jesus, this isn’t a sport, it’s a mugging. No way am I ever going to one of these places again,’ he complained.
But I knew he would be back. He had enjoyed himself, despite his losses, and he had seen me win. He would come back until he won too.
I had been a keen racegoer since my schooldays. One of my friends was the son of a trainer, and he’d explained a lot of the mysteries of the form card to me, and had also managed to pass on his enthusiasm for racehorses. I liked to bet, but only relatively small amounts. I knew it was a sucker’s game, other people had more information, other people made more money. The odds were stacked against the punter like me. But I liked to try to win, to analyse form, to follow a selection of horses through a season, to try to take an educated view of breeding, past form, the going, distance and all the other factors that mysteriously determined whether a horse would win a race. Very rarely did all this analysis pay off, but when it did, as with Busker’s Boy, it felt really good.