The Milliner's Secret Page 4

  ‘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, theydidn’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.’ Sh
e 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.’

  At what point did she realise it wasn’t disappointment crushing Donal? ‘Where’s my betting slip?’

  ‘I—’

  Looping her arms round his neck, she kicked his right leg from under him. He went down, herself on top, her knee on his chest. Never mind that people stared in shock. ‘Where is it, you dimwit?’

  ‘Cora, I didn’t place the bet. I thought Mid-day Sun would lose and I could give you your money back and you’d be pleased. I didn’t want you to be disappointed.’

  Disappointed? She swung the olive green handbag, whacking him until somebody shouted, ‘Lay off, love. Only a few shillings, eh? Your brother was only trying to help.’

  She took her rage out on the stranger instead. ‘It’s not a few shillings, it’s everything! Everything! And he’s not my brother. He’s a snotty-nosed git who pushes laundry because his own granny thinks he’s too useless for anything else.’

  She strode blindly away and within minutes was in a country lane, her shoes streaked with the white chalk that surfaced the road. If wrecked shoes was the price of solitude, so be it. She’d honestly wanted to break Donal’s nose when he was on the ground – which frightened her. That was her father’s temper coming out.

  Up ahead, men were clustered around a pair of piebald horses. One horse was rearing while the other squealed and kicked. The men were Gypsies. On Sundays, back in the days when her parents had loved each other, they’d often taken a bus to the Sussex Downs. There’d be Gypsies there selling lucky heather and giving donkey rides. While her dad ran alongside Cora on a jogging donkey, her mother would step into a wagon for a crystal-ball reading. ‘Superstitious tosh,’ was how Jac Masson denounced it, but Florence had held firm.

  ‘They see things, Jac, and you don’t want a Romany curse on you. I don’t, any rate.’

  The last time they’d done that trip, Cora recalled her mother walking back to them, saying, ‘I’m to have another baby, Jac. The old woman said I had two daughters in my palm. What d’you say to that?’

  Her dad had groaned but he’d looked pleased. Maybe he should have popped into the wagon himself. Then he’d have discovered that his palm had just the one daughter in it and he could have worked out a thing or two. Cora wondered if the men up ahead were selling the piebalds, or preparing to race them. A few yards on, she realised she’d walked into one set of travellers buying the services of a stallion from another. The squealing horse was a mare. The rearing one was definitely a lad.

  Cora turned. She’d never got on with horses. In Barnham Street, one long-ago summer, a tinker’s stallion had tried to mount a rag-and-bone man’s mare. Sparks flying from iron shoes, the rag-and-bone man fighting the stallion off with his whip. Donal, no taller than the side of the cart, started trying to help. He’d been dragged twenty yards when the mare bolted.

  Donal would be searching for her. Maybe she’d go and find him. She had to sooner or later as he had their return tickets . . . but instead she walked through a gateway into a field ringed with wagons. Barefoot children scampered around the remains of campfires. Women sat on wagon steps, smoking pipes, knitting. One called, ‘Wait, lady!’ but Cora turned away, only to be brought up short by an extraordinary vision.

  It was an open-topped car parked between two wagons, its radiator grille, headlamps and wire wheels so highly polished that sunlight lanced off them. Paintwork as red as lipstick had lured a group of boys, who stared the way children do, wanting to touch, fearful that the man lounging against a scarlet wing would chase them off.

  She recognised him by the Ascot hat on the car’s bonnet, and the fair hair lifting like feathers in the breeze. Dietrich. First or last name? Did he have a taste for slumming it? And where was his stuck-up friend?

  Just then, her left hand was taken in a business-like grip. Cora spun round to find a pickled-walnut face staring at her from under a hat resembling a dented stovepipe.

  The woman turned Cora’s hand palm up. ‘Tell your future, lady.’

  ‘I’ve got no money.’

  The Romany woman chuckled. ‘I know that. All you had has been taken.’
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  That took the wind out of Cora. If this woman had the gift, and was offering a palm-reading for free . . . Cora put her handbag on the grass and splayed her fingers. ‘All right, Mother. Will I get out of the hat factory? Will I ever get a spark of fun in life?’

  The woman stared down intently. ‘You’ve a long life path. You will spend your life making.’

  ‘Making what?’

  ‘With your hands. Stitching. Shaping. For others.’

  To Hell with that, Cora swore. Today had taught her something. She wanted to wear hats such as the one she had on, or like the German cow’s trifle topping. Wear, not make. She wanted to swan about with nice-looking men. Wanted money in her purse and some in the bank.

  The Romany said flatly, ‘You will pursue love.’

  ‘Pursue it how far?’ Sheila Flynn must have a much bigger head than hers, Cora thought, because the feather hat was slipping backwards again. She couldn’t straighten it without breaking the gypsy’s grip. ‘Take a look at my love-line.’

  ‘It is unclear. It is severed.’

  Cora blew a stream of air upwards. Feathers were tickling her brow.

  ‘I see children.’

  They always said that, these women. I see a cradle, a blue one and a pink one. It was all tosh.

  ‘You will kill.’ Eyes sharp as vinegar met Cora’s.

  ‘That’s enough.’

  The woman dropped Cora’s hand and walked away. A second, even older, woman came forward, hand out. ‘Shilling.’

  ‘I said at the start, I’ve got no money.’

  The crone pointed to the grass. One of Sheila Flynn’s gloves lay beside the bag and Cora realised she was expected to hand it over. And its twin, obviously. ‘They’re not mine,’ she said.

  ‘A shilling for a palm reading,’ the woman insisted.

  This could go on all day. Cora gave up the gloves – they were the sort easily bought at a draper’s, after all, but the crone thrust them back, rasping, ‘Betrayal!’

  Cora inspected them. They looked pretty innocent to her.