Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [27]
‘I owe her,’ he said, ‘so ladies and gentlemen, here, in her memory is her friend, my wife Cassidy Lovelace Ward, with a Song for Mona.’
The darkness suddenly vibrated with music from vast speakers pouring out a huge wattage of sound from high up round the arena, delivering the sweet clear theme carefully taught in advance so that the song was known, recognised, hummable.
A single spotlight flashed on, slicing through the tingling air, lighting with throbbing dramatic impact the big grey horse standing motionless in the entrance to the ring. Astride the horse’s back sat Cassidy, dressed in silver leather, Western style, with glittering fringes, silver gauntleted gloves and a white ten-gallon hat. The rig that had galvanised the Mississippi brought spontaneous cheering to London.
Cassidy and the grey horse circled the ring with banks of rainbow lights making stained-glass window colours on the silver and white, with prisms flashing on the sparkling fringes. Every few paces the grey circled fast on his hocks, standing tall with Cassidy clinging, clearly enjoying himself, the old show-jumper in a starring role; and the crowd, who knew who he was from a page-long introduction in the programme, laughed and cheered him until, back at the start, Cassidy swept off her outsized hat and shook free her silver-blonde curls.
Oliver had worried slightly that the glitz that had triumphed in Tennessee might strike too brassy a note for a horse-show audience in England, but he needn’t have feared. Cassidy’s people were expert professionals – musicians, lighting crew, electricians, all, and they’d promised – and were delivering – an unforgettable excitement.
At the end of the multicoloured circuit Cassidy rode to the centre of the ring and slid off the horse’s back, handing the reins to Oliver, who waited there in the dark. Then in one of the transformations that regularly brought gasps and a stamping of feet, Cassidy shed her riding gear in a shimmering heap and, revealed in a white, full-skirted, crystal-embroidered evening dress, climbed shallow steps to a platform where a microphone waited.
Cassidy took the microphone and sang the Song for Mona with Mona in her mind, a song of a woman who longed for the love she remembered but had lost. Cassidy sang not of Mona by name, but of all lonely people searching for a warm new heart. Cassidy sang the song twice: once quietly, murmuring, plaintive, and then with full voice, glorious, flooding all Olympia, beseeching and arousing the Fates, calling on hope.
She sustained the last long true soaring note until it seemed her lungs must burst, then from one second to the next the barrage of super-sound from the speakers fell silent. The white spotlights folded their beams, as Cassidy, shedding the glittering dress in the lights’ dying rays, left just a heap of glimmer while she slipped out of the ring in black.
She returned briefly to wild applause in a black cloak with a sparkling lining. She waved in thanks with raised arms, and was gone. The old magic that had worked so well in Nashville had spread its wings and flown free at Olympia.
Sentimental, some critics complained; but sentimental songs reached the hearts of millions, and so it was with Cassidy’s Song for Mona. By the end of the ten live performances at Olympia, the long-lasting melody was spilling from CDs and radios everywhere on its way to classic status.
Joanie and Peregrine, with gritted teeth, watched the cheering show the evening it was televised. Such a pity, the studio announcer deplored with regret, that top auctioneer Peregrine Vine and his socialite wife Joan, who was Mona Watkins’ only daughter, had been unable to attend any of the performances.
Joanie fell speechless with bitter chagrin. Peregrine wondered if it were possible to start again in yet another town: but the Song for Mona was sung everywhere, from concerts to karaoke. Peregrine looked at his beautiful selfish wife and wondered if she were worth it.
A while after the glories of Olympia, Oliver and Cassidy cooked in their kitchen and ate without