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rope beside the fireplace to call for heraunty’s chauffeur to collect her cases. They were all getting the same train back to Cirencester so he was using the old Rolls Royce for the luggage, in addition to the two taxis that had been ordered.
    While she waited, she ran a hand over her tummy, it felt like lead and ached abominably. The Curse had started that morning, which explained why she had been so tense and edgy before.
    When Jeremy had kept on pestering her for a silly kiss, she had said no, and dug her heels in, even though she had let him do it before. It was the fact that he was tipsy and completely different from normal, all bullying and overbearing.
    Fay really couldn’t understand men. At nineteen she had a general idea about life, but decidedly no experience of it. At Cheltenham Ladies College, where she had boarded, there had been smutty stories and, as a horsewoman, she obviously knew how animals came into the world, but men – they were exasperating at one moment, mysterious and exciting the next.
    There was a knock on the door. When she opened it the chauffeur stood there.
    ‘Come for the bags, miss.’
    Fay stepped aside. ‘There we are, thank you.’
    She drew on her long cream coat with its high collar, pulling the belt tight. She already had her small hat on, the top adorned with feathers, a small net covering her face to below the eyes.
    They were all waiting in the drawing-room so she sat on the arm of the sofa, one leg swinging.
    Aunt Cynthia beamed. ‘Haven’t forgotten anything have you, my dear?’
    ‘No, it’s all packed.’
    ‘Give my love to your mother.’
    A maid came from the hall.
    ‘The taxis are here, madam.’
    With much taking of farewells and ‘thank yous’, they crowded out into the hall, Aunt Cynthia calling out, ‘See you all for Gold Cup week.’
    The taxis were two large black Austins. Fay ducked into the leather and wood-smelling interior and sank back into the deep seat by the far window. To her irritation Jeremy’s large frame thumped down alongside her, his weight making her fall against him.
    ‘For heaven’s sake, Jeremy.’
    ‘Sorry.’
    Fay straightened herself up as the taxi driver slammed the door. It was a short ride to St James’s station but the streets were becoming increasingly crowded with cars. There were Humbers, Jaguars, Morrises and, of course, buses and bicycles. Quite a few horse and carts were moving among the other traffic, some with pneumatic tyres, as they clip-clopped their way along, occasionally leaving little piles of dung.
    The new Regal cinema had been built on the end of Imperial Terrace, behind the Neptune fountain, which looked very sad today with icicles hanging like bogies from the sea god’s nostrils.
    A ‘coming this year’ poster for a new film called, Gone with the Wind showed a determined looking Clark Gable lifting Vivien Leigh in his strong arms and bending her backwards about to kiss her. The boy who had caused all the trouble last night looked vaguely like him, at least around the eyes, but he didn’t have a moustache. God, what was the matter with her? Was she going to have these ridiculous fantasies all the time? But as Vivien Leigh disappeared from view, Fay put her head back, ostensibly looking at the roof but, in reality, copying the star’s position – with that boy bending over her in her imagination.
     
    At Cheltenham’s main railway station he entered the modest, stone-flagged concourse and proceeded down one red-bricked side and under the glass canopy with its filigree woodwork that ended at the platform edge.
    The office he was making for was at the far end of the station. When he entered it, his nose was assailed by a smell of old coal gas from the now redundant wall lights mixed with years of smoke and steam. A single electric light under a dirty celluloid cover still glowed in the high roof. Facing him was the large, white-faced clock inscribed, ‘GWR’ that clonked out the time. The railway time