‘Fancy a drink?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but not here,’ she said indicating the Guinness bar.

‘No,’ I agreed.

We went in search of one of the bars under the grandstand but they were all packed with a scrum ten deep to get served.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go up to the boxes.’

I was sure that Edward Cartwright, my host, wouldn’t mind me bringing Eleanor into his box and so it turned out. In fact, he rather monopolized her and left me wishing we had stayed in the crush downstairs.

I had seen Eleanor twice since the previous November. The first time had been in London just a week later, when I had asked her to a black-tie dinner in the Hall at Gray’s Inn. It hadn’t been a particularly successful evening. I should have opted for a table for two in a candle-lit Italian restaurant rather than the long refectory tables and benches in Hall.

The seating plan had us sitting opposite each other rather than side by side as I had hoped and conversation between us had been difficult, not only due to the noise of three hundred people eating and talking at once, but also because the centre of the table was full of flowers, silver candelabras, and a detritus of wine glasses, condiments and place-cards.

We had hardly spoken a word to each other the whole evening and I think she had been bored by the speeches, which had contained too many ‘in’ jokes for the lawyers. At the end of the dinner she had jumped straight back into a cab and rushed off to Paddington for the last train home.

Why I had asked her to that dinner, I could not imagine. If I had wanted a romantic evening à deux, I couldn’t have chosen anything less appropriate. Maybe, that was the trouble. Maybe I hadn’t actually wanted a romantic evening à deux in the first place. It was silly to admit, but perhaps I was scared to embark on a new amorous adventure. It also made me feel guilty. Guilty that I was somehow deserting Angela.

The second time we had met had been even more of a disaster. We had both been guests at a Christmas ball thrown by a big racing sponsor in the grandstand at Newbury racecourse. I had been there in a party put together by Paul and Laura Newington, and Eleanor had been in another group, one of the many from Lambourn. I had been so delighted to see her again and had immediately asked her to dance. But she had been with someone else and he’d been determined that I wouldn’t get a look-in with ‘his’ girl. I had felt wretched all evening. It was not just that I had lost out to another, it was that, maybe, I had suddenly realized that the time was now right and I had missed my chance. The bus had come along willingly and had opened its doors to pick me up, but I had declined the offer and now it had driven off, leaving me standing alone at the bus-stop. I now worried that it might have been the last bus, and that I would remain waiting at the stop for ever.

‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Eleanor said, coming up behind me again. I had been leaning on the balcony rail aimlessly watching the massed crowds below and I hadn’t noticed her escape the clutches of Edward and come outside to join me.

‘You,’ I said, turning and looking into her blue eyes.

She blushed, the crimson colouring spreading up from her neck and over her face.

‘Did you know,’ I said, ‘that if you are naked you blush all over your body.’

‘Bastard,’ she said. She turned away and laughed.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ I asked her.

‘I’m not coming to another of your awful dining-in nights, that’s for sure.’

We laughed together.

‘I have to admit that it was a bit of a disaster,’ I agreed. ‘But I’m sure the next one will be better.’

‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I had always thought lawyers were boring, and now I know they are.’

‘You just haven’t met the right lawyers,’ I said.

She paused and smiled at me. ‘Oh yes I have,’ she said.

Wow, I thought. The bus had made a round trip. Now do I get on?

Sadly, I didn’t spend the evening with Eleanor, nor the night.

In fact, I spent very little time with her at all. Her bleep went off as we were still on the balcony and she rushed off to find a quiet spot to make a call, returning only briefly to tell me that she had to go back to Lambourn. There was an emergency at the hospital, something about a prize stallion and a twisted gut.

‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ I shouted after her rather forlornly as she rushed away.

‘Hope so,’ she called back. ‘Call me on the mobile in the morning.’

Suddenly she was gone. I was surprised at how disappointed I felt. Was I really ready after seven and a half years? Don’t rush things, I told myself.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon drifting between the box upstairs and the parade ring. I had intended to use the time to familiarize myself with the surroundings, the sounds and the smells of the Festival in mental preparation for the race the following day. Instead, I spent most of the time thinking about Eleanor, and about Angela. They were quite different but in many ways they were the same. Eleanor was blonde with blue eyes whereas Angela had been dark with brown, but they both had a similar sense of humour, and a love for life and fun.

‘Which one do you fancy?’

I looked at the man standing next to me who had spoken. I didn’t know him.

‘I beg your pardon?’ I said.

‘Which one do you fancy?’ he said again, nodding at the horses. We were leaning up against the rail of the parade ring where the horses for the next race were walking round and round.

‘Oh,’ I said in sudden understanding. ‘Sorry, I don’t even know what’s running.’

He lost interest in me instantly, and went on studying the horseflesh on parade in front of him prior, no doubt, to making an investment with the bookies.

I went back upstairs to the box, telling myself to snap out of this daydreaming and pay attention to the racing.

‘How’s he doing?’ Francesca Dacey whispered in my ear as she stood behind me to watch the race on the balcony.

‘Fed up,’ I said, turning slightly. ‘But otherwise OK.’

‘Say hi to him for me if you get the chance,’ she whispered again before moving away to her left and talking to another of the guests.

The World Hurdle, the big race of the day, was a three-mile hurdle race for horses with stamina for the long distance, especially the uphill finish in the March mud. And stamina they had. Four horses crossed the last obstacle in line abreast and each was driven hard for the line, the crowd cheering them on with fervour, the result to be determined only by the race judge and his photographs.

There was a buzz in the crowd after the horses swept past the winning post, such had been the exhilarating effect of the closest of finishes; the adrenalin still rushed round our veins, our breathing was still just a tad faster than normal. Such moments were what brought the crowds back time and again to Cheltenham. The best horses, ridden by the best jockeys, stretching to reach the line first. Winning was everything.

‘First, number seven,’ said the announcer to a huge cheer from some and a groan of misery from others. Reno Clemens on horse number seven stood bolt upright in his stirrups and punched the air, saluting the crowd, who roared back their appreciation. How I longed for it to be me doing just that the following afternoon.

Most of the guests rushed off to watch the winner come back to the unsaddling enclosure, where he would receive a fresh wave of cheering and applause. I, however, decided to stay put. I had done my share of aimlessly wandering the racecourse wishing that Eleanor had been with me to share it.

The lunch table had been pushed up against one wall and was now heaving under large trays of sandwiches and cakes ready for tea. I looked longingly at a cream-filled chocolate éclair and opted instead for the smallest cucumber sandwich I could find.