The Milliner's Secret (5 page)

‘There is something amusing about me?’ He spoke in the clipped way the Pettrew’s directors did when they stood up in their silk plush hats to address their workers.

‘Sorry, I was trying to pick a horse.’ It came out as ‘an ’orse’. You can take the girl out of Bermondsey . . . Her mother, whose finest hour had been playing Gwendolen Fairfax at the Prince of Wales Theatre, had taught her that to speak nicely, you must start by lifting your nose as if smelling a rose, and saying, ‘an egg’. Saying ‘an egg’ now would make her sound barmy.
Just don’t say anything beginning with H
, she told herself. ‘I didn’t realise anyone was behind me.’

‘Did you not think in a crowd there would be someone behind you?’

‘I was trying to picture the winning . . . er, runner. To feel a spark.’ Her new, cultured voice seemed to do the trick. The man looked intrigued.

‘Did you? Feel a spark, I mean?’

‘Sort of.’ She was feeling one now and it wasn’t just this man’s looks doing it: it was his smell, reminiscent of empty spice jars. ‘I get it in my belly. I mean, stomach. I mean, in my middle.’ She patted the place. ‘I fancy Mid-day Sun.’

He glanced at her waist and, for the first time, smiled. She’d tucked her gloves into her belt, not wanting a barrier between her hand and her borrowed bag. Thieves were rife at race meetings. The gloves had curled over, like begging paws.

‘Interesting. To say he’s unfancied would be an understatement.’

‘Stupid choice, probably,’ she agreed.

‘Not wholly. He won at Lingfield, at the Derby Trial Stakes, so he’s proved himself over a mile and a half in good company.’

‘Blimey, has he?’ Lingfield wasn’t Newmarket or Ascot. It wasn’t even York . . . Actually, Cora couldn’t have found Lingfield on a map if her life depended on it, but that didn’t matter. Mid-day Sun had form, so her funny feeling wasn’t so funny. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be a bomber.’

‘Now you’ve lost me – bomber?’

‘Comes from behind.’ As Cora spoke, an auburn-haired woman did just that, slipping a cream-kid hand under the man’s arm. With a fleeting glance for Cora, she said something in a breathy voice. Not in English, in German.

Lots of foreigners came to Pettrew & Lofthouse, and because she’d learned French from her father, Cora was often asked to show them around the make-room. French was the language of the hat trade, but she’d picked up a smattering of German, too, because some of the best Berlin department stores regularly sent their buyers.

So she knew that the woman disliked being in a crowd and hated the smell of frying food. And when she gazed up at her companion and murmured, ‘
Nicht so, Dietrich
?’ Cora sucked in her cheeks, assuming they were saying how much like Marlene Dietrich she looked. It was only when the man replied without looking at her that Cora realised
he
must be called Dietrich.

He hadn’t sounded foreign. Though, now she thought of it, he did choose his words carefully, the way a stamp collector picks rare pieces from a box with tweezers. It explained why they were there, alongside the suburban matrons and stripy-suited commercial men, instead of swanning in the members’ enclosure. Poor saps must have bought the wrong passes.

The man called Dietrich recalled Cora’s presence. He said, in English, to his companion, ‘This young lady thinks Mid-day Sun could be a bomber.’

Auburn brows lifted. ‘Really?’ She sounded bored. Like many women there today, she wore white from head to toe. A silver fox collar made a sumptuous frame for her face and her clutch coat revealed a dress of snowy chiffon. She wore silk stockings and kid shoes that the grass hadn’t yet marked. A triple row of pearls closed the gap between glove and sleeve. As for her hat, Cora couldn’t take her eyes from it. White beaver belly, its crown formed two V-shaped peaks, like yacht sails at different points on the horizon. Or, if you were being fanciful, it was a trifle topping. It would have looked silly on virtually every woman in the world, but on this one, it was almost perfect.

Almost. Impelled by an impulse she couldn’t explain, Cora spoke: ‘Your hat’s crying out for a brim. It’s too narrow to balance your collar. Either you need more hat, or less fur.’

Had they been anywhere else, deafening silence would have greeted this remark, but as the Derby runners were now parading past the stands, her impudence went no further than Dietrich and the woman, who asked in heavily accented English, ‘You are a hat-maker?’

‘Yes . . . I’m – I’m a milliner. Quite a famous one, actually.’

‘Indeed?’ The woman appraised Cora’s black-feathered hat so intently, she wondered if it had slipped back, revealing her bad eye. She knew it when the woman said, ‘You have had an accident, perhaps?’

‘I tripped getting out of my automobile.’

‘And you were in Paris recently?’

‘I . . . um . . . not that recently.’

‘Because your hat comes from La Passerinette, in boulevard de la Madeleine.’

Cora felt the ground shift. How did the woman know? ‘Boulevard . . . as you say. I don’t always wear my own hats.’

‘Why not? Surely, at the Epsom races, a good milliner wears her own designs.’

‘No.’ Cora dug for a credible reason. ‘I’m here incognito. That’s why I’m not in the members’ enclosure. Ladies are always wanting the hat off my head.’ Only she said ‘’at off my ’ead’.
An egg, a bloody egg.

‘If you are well known, I will have heard of you. What is your name?’

She could have said Cora Masson. But ‘Cora’ had always felt like a charwoman’s name and ‘Masson’ was marred by her dad’s knuckles and his drunken breath. A swift glance at the runners’ board showed her Le Grand Duc at odds of 100 to nine. When he wanted to impress the butcher or the coalman, her father had his bills sent to ‘Jacques Masson de Lirac’, claiming descent from some ancient French dukedom. If he could pretend, so could she. ‘My name is Coralie de Lirac.’ ‘Coralie’ had been her mother’s pet name for her.

‘You have a card?’ the woman asked.

‘A race card?’

‘Business card. I am curious about this La Passerinette hat. I have – I
had
– one very similar and would like to know if somebody is copying it.’

Anticipating questions she couldn’t answer, Cora improvised, ‘I dropped my cards when I fell out my motor-car but tell me your address and I’ll send you one in the post.’ The anticipated snub finally arrived.

‘One presents cards only to social equals. Dietrich,’ the woman touched her companion’s arm, ‘I am very bored now. Take me away.’

Donal chose that moment to return, clutching jars of ginger beer and two paper parcels reeking of fried onion.

‘Extra mustard, Cora!’ he shouted, over the heads of the crowd. ‘By the way, some geezer in the queue reckoned the Kentucky horse is a banker.’ Reading her crushed expression, he stared hard at the departing man in immaculate morning dress, the lady in her silver fur, and blared, ‘Ruddy hell,
they
didn’t try to pickpocket you, did they?’

Cora took a long swig of ginger beer. Its sweet gassiness made her feel empty and sick at the same time. Too long since breakfast. Donal pointed at the runners’ board. ‘Perifox. He’s the one.’ When she sniffed, he said, ‘He’s an American champ, goes like a bullet.’

‘If he’s come over on an Atlantic liner, he’ll be wanting a lie-down. Epsom’s a rogue’s course. Any horse can win if it’s ridden well and has a bit of luck. I’m backing Mid-day Sun.’

Dropping fried onion in shock, Donal listed all the reasons why she was idiotic, ending with ‘
And
he’s owned by a woman. Women don’t win classic races.’

‘She isn’t running, is she? She’s not riding either. She just owns him.’

Donal’s face closed. ‘Women don’t own Derby winners.’

‘Says who?’

‘Everyone.’ He cast his head from side to side, searching for a reason. ‘Women can’t buy the best horses – they never have enough money. And men won’t sell them good horses because women pick horses like they pick hats. They want the chestnuts and the greys or the ones they feel sorry for. It’s a man’s game. Men ride, men train, men win.’

That sounded like life in a nutshell, but Cora flicked a speck of mustard into Donal’s face. ‘Times are changing.’
I could be a supervisor at Pettrew & Lofthouse, on two hundred pounds a year
. And a woman could be leading the winner into the ring in half an hour’s time. Anything can happen. She belched delicately behind her hand, the ginger beer doing its usual trick. She still felt sick, and still hungry. ‘I need to dash – Donal, you put my money on for me.’ She handed him two pounds ten shillings. ‘On the nose, to win. Don’t go all soft and do an each-way.’

‘You’d be mad not to back him each-way. He could come third, just, but he won’t win. You’ll lose the lot.’

‘My money, my risk. You’re going with Peri— What’s his name?’

‘I might. Or the one with the Russian name.’

‘Le Ksar?’

‘That’s it. But probably Goya eye-eye.’

‘What?’ Cora checked her race card. ‘Goya the Second, nitwit. You want to give the bookies a laugh?’

Donal gave a superior sniff. ‘You never give the bookies the horse’s name, Cora, only the number.’

‘Yeah, well, get in that queue. I’ve got to run.’

Cora was violently sick in the ladies’ lavatory. After she’d pulled the chain, she leaned against the cubicle wall. Her tumble in Shand Street had finally caught up with her. After washing her hands and rinsing her mouth at the basin, she went out into sunshine that seemed to have doubled in strength. By the time she found Donal, it was eight minutes past three, but the race had been delayed.

‘Couldn’t get the horses in a line.’ Donal threw her an odd glance. ‘You all right?’

‘Did you put my money on?’

‘I still think you’re mad. To be honest—’ Someone bumped into him and, as wary as Cora of thieves, he clamped his arms to his sides. A roar like a flock of invisible birds rose from the blind side of The Hill. The Derby Stakes was under way.

The first five and a half furlongs were run on the far side, so they couldn’t see a thing. Then everyone was looking to the left. Those with binoculars raised them. An instant later, the field was peeling round Tattenham Corner. Someone adept at reading jockeys’ colours cried out, ‘It’s Renardo, Fairford and Le Grand Duc.’

Cora and Donal stared at each other in dismay.

‘Fairford’s leading,’ their informant shouted. Cora strained to catch the first sight of horses coming onto the straight, only Donal was jumping up and down because the cry had gone up that Goya II was challenging Fairford for the lead. ‘Go on, my son!’ he bellowed.

‘Where’s mine?’ Cora wailed. ‘Where’s Mid-day Sun?’

‘Fairford’s lost it,’ somebody shouted. ‘It’s going to be Goya the Second or Le Grand Duc.’

‘It’s Perifox!’ somebody else countered.

‘Goya!’ Donal beat the air to drive his horse home. ‘I backed him nine to one.’

Cora felt sick again. Donal was right: she was a sentimental sop who had no place on a racecourse. But she’d been so sure.

Horses swept past, two bays locked in a private challenge.

‘Who’s won? Donal, who’s won?’

‘It could have been Goya. Holy Mother, I’ll buy myself a bicycle if he’s done it.’

‘Who was coming up on the outside?’ But nobody could answer her, not even the know-all behind them. It was a painful wait, until a new roar went up and the winner’s name appeared on the board.

Cora’s shriek hurt even her own ears. ‘He’s done it! Mid-day Sun! I could kiss him. I’m going to kiss you!’ Reaching for Donal, she was surprised to find herself grabbing a complete stranger. Donal was already heading away, through the crowd.

Mid-day Sun first, Sandsprite second, Le Grand Duc third. When Cora finally collared Donal, his face resembled cold suet pudding.

‘Oh, God,’ he said.

She gave him a hug. ‘I’ll share my winnings, then you can have another go. The way my luck’s going, we’ll win enough to get you two bicycles.’ She’d have danced a jig had Donal not been a deadweight. So she jigged on her own. ‘Miss McCullum can stick her promotion. I can give notice. I’ll leave home tomorrow. What’s that poor bookie going to say when I tell him he’s got to hand over thirty-five quid or more?’ She waited, waited longer than she liked. ‘Donal? Give me the betting slip.’