(1984) Proof by Francis Dick

Author:Francis, Dick [Dick, Francis,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-06-30T14:53:26.468000+00:00

'What interesting breeding,' which seemed to cover most eventualities, including my own absolute ignorance of all the horses involved. He nodded judiciously. 'American blood, of course. Draughty City was by Chicago Lake out of a dam by Michigan. Good strong hard horses. I never saw Draughty City of course, but I've talked to people who saw him race. You can't do better than mixed American and British blood, I always say.' 'I'm sure you're right,' I said. Orkney discoursed for several further minutes on Breezy Palm's antecedents with me making appropriate comments here and there and Flora, on the edge of my vision, slowly beginning to relax. Such progress as she had made was however ruined at that point by the arrival from the powder room of the lady to whom Orkney wasn't married, and it was clear that however much Orkney himself made Flora feel clumsy, his lady did it double. Compared with Flora she was six inches taller, six inches slimmer and approximately six years younger. She also had strikingly large grey eyes, a long thin neck and luminous make-up, and was wearing almost the same clothes but with distinctly more chic: tailored suit, good shoes, neat felt hat at a becoming angle. An elegant, mature, sophisticated knock-out. To the eye it was no contest. Flora looked dumpy beside her, and knew it. I put my arm round her shoulders and hugged her and thought for one dreadful second that I'd reduced her to tears. 'Flora,' Orkney said, 'of course you and Isabella know each other . . . Isabella, my dear, this is Flora's walker ... er ... what did you say your name was?' I told him. He told Isabella. Isabella and I exchanged medium hello smiles and Orkney returned to the subject of American forebears. The races came and went: first, second, third. Everyone went down each time to inspect the horses as they walked round the parade ring, returning to the box to watch the race. Orkney gambled seriously, taking his custom to the bookmakers on the rails. Isabella flourished fistfuls of Tote tickets. Flora said she couldn't be bothered to bet but would

rather check to make sure everything was all right with Breezy Palm. I went with her to find Jack's travelling head lad (not the unctuous Howard but a little dynamo of a man with sharp restless eyes) who said cryptically that the horse was as right as he would ever be and that Mrs Hawthorn wasn't to worry, everything was in order. Mrs Hawthorn naturally took no heed of his good advice and went on worrying regardless. 'Why didn't you tell Orkney what really happened to your arm, dear?' she asked. 'I'm not proud of it,' I said prosaically. 'Don't want to talk about it. Just like Orkney.' Flora the constant chatterer deeply sighed. 'So odd, dear. It's nothing to be ashamed of.' We returned in the lift to the box where Flora wistfully eyed the still-wrapped food and asked if I'd had any lunch.

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