Bloodline

The waitress returned with the water and poured two glasses.

‘Are you ready to order?’ she asked.

‘Just the haddock for me,’ Clare said. ‘And without the mash.’

‘No starter?’ I asked.

‘No, thanks. I’ve got to do seven stone thirteen tomorrow.’

‘Wow!’ I said. ‘That is light.’

‘Too bloody light.’

‘I’ll have the steak,’ I said to the patient waitress. ‘Medium rare, but no chips.’ I could hardly eat chips with Clare watching enviously. ‘And a glass of the red Bordeaux please.’

The waitress took our menus and left us.

‘I found it really depressing, going home,’ Clare said.

‘Why?’

‘Dad’s lost all his sparkle, and Mum’s not much better. I swear Dad gets more grumpy every day.’

‘But, as you said, they’re getting old. Dad will be seventy-eight next month and Mum’s only a couple of years behind him.’

Both our parents had been in their mid forties when we had unexpectedly come along. We had three much older siblings.

‘Getting old’s a real bugger,’ Clare said. ‘I’ve decided I’m never getting old.’

‘It’s better than the alternative.’

‘Is it?’ Clare replied. ‘I can’t imagine a time when I couldn’t ride any more. I wouldn’t want to go on living.’

‘Lester Piggott was nearly sixty when he stopped riding.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ she said. ‘And Scobie Breasley was fifty-two when he won the Derby for the second time. I looked it up.’

My, I thought, she really was worried about retirement, and she was only thirty-one. In my experience when jockeys started thinking about retiring they usually did so pretty quickly. Lots of them say they will retire in five years and then they stop in about five months, some in five weeks, or even less.

The waitress brought me my glass of wine and offered us bread, which we both declined.

‘And the house is looking old too,’ Clare said.

‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it?’ I said. According to the datestone on one of the gables, it had been built in 1607.

‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘It needs some TLC.’

‘A lick of paint on the windows,’ I agreed, nodding. ‘But Dad’s a bit too old to do that himself. He may be quite fit but I don’t think ladders are a good idea any more, not at his age.’

‘I think they should move,’ she said decisively. ‘Into somewhere smaller, or into an old folks’ home. I told them so.’

‘I bet that didn’t go down too well.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Dad was angry — as usual. But they have to be practical. That house is too big. I think they should go into a home now, while they still can.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘They don’t need to yet. And where would they put all their stuff?’

‘What worries me is what the other one will do when one of them dies. That place is far too big for both of them, let alone one. They’ll have to move then.’

‘I hope that’ll be years away. Anyway, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘That’s typical of you,’ Clare said, pointing her slender left forefinger at my chest. ‘Always burying your head in the sand and doing nothing.’

‘That’s not fair,’ I said.

‘Yes it is,’ she said defiantly. ‘You always put things off. That’s why you still live in that dreadful rented flat in Edenbridge.’

‘You liked it once,’ I whined.

‘I did when I was nineteen, but life moves on. You should have bought yourself a house years ago. You must be earning enough by now.’

She was right. She usually was.

Our meals arrived and we sat for a while in silence, eating.

‘How’s your love life?’ Clare asked finally.

‘None of your business,’ I replied, laughing. ‘How’s yours?’

‘Absolutely wonderful. I have a new man. Three months now. What a lover!’ She grinned and then laughed. He clearly made her happy.

‘Who is it?’ I asked, leaning forward.

‘Now that’s none of your business,’ she said.

‘Come on, Clare. Who is it?’

‘I’m not saying,’ she said seriously, drawing a finger across her mouth as if zipping it shut. She opened it, however, to pop in a piece of her haddock. ‘Are you still seeing Sarah?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

She looked down at her plate and shook her head.

‘And what’s that meant to mean?’ I asked.

‘Mark, it’s high time you had a proper girlfriend.’

‘I do.’

‘Sarah is not a proper girlfriend. She’s someone else’s wife.’

‘She’s working on it,’ I said defensively.

‘She’s been working on it for five years. When are you going to realize she won’t ever leave Mitchell? She can’t afford to.’

‘Give her time.’

‘God, Mark, you’re so weak. For once, do something about it. Tell her it’s now or never and you’re fed up waiting. You’re wasting your life.’

‘You can talk,’ I said. ‘Your love life has hardly been Mills and Boon.’ Clare had dated a string of what my father had rather generously called ‘unsuitable young men’, and not all of them had been that young either. ‘Which misfit is it you’re seeing now, anyway?’

‘I told you, that’s none of your bloody business,’ she replied curtly and without the humour that had been there earlier. ‘But at least I’m not living a lie.’

‘Aren’t you?’ I said.

‘And what is that meant to mean?’ she asked belligerently.

‘Oh, nothing.’

We ate again in silence.